“The International Olympic Committee mandated biologic verification of female athletes in 1968; this continued through 1998. The goal was to prevent men or women with “unfair man-like advantages” from participating. Women had to undergo visual inspection by committee; after an outcry at this practice, gynecologic exams were implemented, then lab tests. All tests were done in search of the athletes’ “true sex.” Many females with intersex characteristics were therefore screened out: women with minor defects in the sex chromosome complement were disqualified. Despite compelling evidence for the lack of scientific merit for chromosome testing, the leadership of the Olympics continued this policy for 30 years.” (PLENARY 3: CONCEPTUALIZING SEX AND GENDER Anke A. Ehrhardt, URL: https://forumresearch.org/storage/documents/SexAndGenderIssues/anke-ehrhardt.pdf” accessed 1/4/2024)
In 1977 Renée Richards was allowed by the courts to participate in the U.S. Open and other professional tennis events through the remainder of her professional career. Richards was a trans woman who had undergone medical transition two years previously and was outed to the media before the competition.
“In 1990 a Professional Working Group in Monte Carlo concluded that gender verification was based on faulty thinking and in 1992 IAAF agreed and abolished gender verification,..” (Ehrhardt)
“In 1999, the International Olympics Committee abandoned chromosomal screening. “ (Ehrhardt)
In 2003, the International Olympic Committee established that starting in 2004, trans athletes could compete under their gender identity if:
The have had gender confirmation surgery including gonadectomy and external genital surgeries
Have legal recognition of their gender identity
Have undergone hormone therapy for a minimum of two years
In 2008, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the State of Washington, clarified that transgender students could participate in school sports aligned with their gender identities. In 2012, Massachusetts made that more explicit. In 2013 California, and in 2014 South Dakota, Minnesota, and Ohio's state athletic associations policies explicitly stated that trans students in K12 schools could participate in sports aligned with their gender.
In 2010, the NCAA clarified its policy regarding transgender student athletes, stating that trans men who have a waiver for their testosterone hormone therapy may participate in men’s sports, and trans women who have been undergoing testosterone suppression therapy for a minimum of one year may participate in women’s sports. Additional states’ K12 athletic associations began explicitly allowing transgender students to participate in athletics in alignment with their gender identities.
The NCAA’s current policy (as of 1/19/2022) regarding transgender student athletes is to allow the governing bodies of each individual sport to set eligibility requirements, which is in alignment with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees, and in the absence of such a sports specific policy to default to the International Olympic Committee policy. For most sports, this means that trans women may fully participate in women’s athletic events if they have suppressed testosterone levels below a particular level, tested semi-annually, and have been undergoing testosterone suppression for a minimum of one year.
In 2015 the IOC’s policy became less restrictive in response to critiques from cyclist Kristen Worley about the surgical requirements. Trans woman athletes needed to declare their gender and not change that assertion for four years, as well as demonstrate a testosterone level of less than 10 nanomoles per liter for at least one year prior to competition and throughout the period of eligibility. Athletes who transitioned from female to male were allowed to compete without restriction.
Individual sports bodies held to similar guidelines until 2022 when some became more restrictive. For track and field (as of 2023), swimming (2022), and rugby (2022) trans women are barred from international competition by their respective governing bodies, Exceptions are given for swimming and track and field for athletes who have not undergone testosterone based puberty.
By late 2014, the Alliance Defending Freedom, another conservative Christian legal advocacy group and think tank, co-founded by the founder of Focus on the Family, began pushing for both bathroom and locker room restrictions in schools against trans students, and against trans inclusive sports programs in schools and state athletic associations. They have also been behind many of the anti-trans model bills.
In October 2017, At the Values Voters Summit, panelists who had been fighting against transgender inclusion in a Virgina school district since 2015, recommended that in order to push back against LGBTQ gains to “Focus on gender identity to divide and conquer…. For all of its recent success, the LGBT alliance is actually fragile, and the trans activists need the gay rights movement to help legitimize them. Gender identity on its own is just a bridge too far. If you separate the T from the alphabet soup, we’ll have more success.” They talked about appealing to progressive groups positioning trans women as the ultimate misogyny. Looking back, Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project noted that pushing against trans girls and trans women in sports was an issue which could get broader traction.
Some may see sports bans, particularly for trans women and trans girls as being something reasonable and protective of the rights of cis women and cis girls. However, passing sports bans sets the tone and the public opinion window that trans people aren't actually the genders we say we are and that we are predators and harmful to women and children. It makes it easier to treat us as monsters and to discriminate against us
Southern Poverty Law Center's "Captain" project is an enormous, extensively researched collection of documents showing the organization, methods, and fallacies of the contemporary anti-trans movement.
In 2019 we saw several states try and fail to pass both GAC bans and sports bans.
In 2020 Alliance Defending Freedom's trans women & girls sports ban model bill, the "Save Women's Sports Act" (SWSA) was launched, becoming law in Idaho under the name "Fairness in Women's Sports Act" (FSWA). It was the first of several trans sports bans passed by statehouses though the only one to do so in 2020. Most of the later sports ban bills, like "FWSA" were variations on Alliance Defending Freedom's "Save Women's Sports Act". A total of 15 SWSA based bills in 10 states appeared in 2020 (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi. New Hampshire, Ohio, and South Carolina) Alabama’s “Gender Is ReaL (GIRL)” Act failed in two versions. 9 additional states: Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia, also tried failing anti trans kids in sports bills for a total of 19 states trying and failing to pass 30 sports ban bills, with one succeeding. In addition, one state, Massachusetts, had two sports ban bills carry over from the previous year and fail.
Idaho's FWSA was put under injunction in August 2020 and that injunction was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2023.
In 2021, ADF's "Save Women's Sports Act" became law in 6 states, and trans sports bans of other formats were passed in 3 more states such that nine new states had such bans: Alabama, Arkansas had two, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota by Executive order, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia; bringing the total such bans to ten. They have been titled The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act: in Idaho, Arkansas, Florida ; The Save Women’s Sports Act in Montana; The Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Girls' Sports (GIRLS) Act in Arkansas. A total of 68 sports ban bills (41 of them SWFA's) appeared in 31 different states (23 of those states had SWFA bills) that year.
In 2022, 10 more states passed sports bans including Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee had two, bringing the total number of states with such bans to twenty. They have been titled The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act: in Idaho, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana ; The Save Women’s Sports Act in Arizona, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina; The Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Girls' Sports (GIRLS) Act in Arkansas.
[Currently, 25 states have sports bans NEEDS UPDATE]. See Movement Advancement Project's Bans on Transgender Youth Participation in Sports page
Sports bans where a student’s sex qualifications may be challenged are also particularly vulnerable to racism. In the U.S. many folks’ conception of what a girl or a woman looks like is centered on typically white European features. Misogynoir, the intersection of misogyny with anti-Black racism including distinctive features of bigotry against Black women in particular, has included disparaging claims that many cisgender Black women are actually trans. Black women athletes, cis or trans, are more susceptible to being accused of being disqualified due to trans status.
The following states and districts have no further restrictions on sports eligibility for college student athletes as of the 2023-24 academic year than those stated under the NCAA guidelines.
Alaska
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Indiana* Has a K12 ban.
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Ohio (Under Federal District Court injunction)
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming
After individual states allowed trans students to participate in K12 sports aligned with their gender identities, legislative efforts began to reverse that policy and to extend that reversal to college athletics. Some of those attempts were prior to the beginning of 2015 but most came after. The first of these attempts to be made into law was in Idaho in 2020. While that law’s implementation is currently blocked in the courts, further laws restricting trans students particularly trans women students’ participation in college athletics became effective from 2021 and later such that for the 2023-24 year, 21 states prohibit trans women from participating in women’s college athletics and three states also prohibit trans men from participating in men’s college athletics.
The following states prohibit trans students from participating in college sports on teams aligned with their gender identity:
Alabama (Public Only) 2023 HB 261
Missouri (trans men can participate on men’s teams if no equivalent women’s team exists) 2023 SB 39
Texas (trans men can participate on men’s teams if no equivalent women’s team exists) 2023 SB 15
The following states prohibit trans women but not trans men from participating in college sports on teams aligned with their gender identity (in both public and private two and four year institutions unless otherwise specified):
Arizona 2022 SB1165 Save Women’s Sports Act (Federal District Court injunction 7/30/23; injunction upheld by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals 9/9/24)
Arkansas 2021 SB 354 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act and 2021 SB 450 Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Sports (GIRLS) Act.
Florida 2021 S 1028 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act
Idaho 2020 HB 500 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act (Currently under injunction by the 9th Circuit)
Iowa 2021 HF 2416
Kansas 2023 HB 2238 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act
Kentucky 2022 SB 83 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act
Louisiana 2022 SB 44 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act
Mississippi 2021 SB 2536
Montana 2021 HB 112 Save Women’s Sports Act
North Carolina 2023 H 574 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act
North Dakota 2023 HB 1489
Ohio 2023 HB 68 Save Women’s Sports Act
Oklahoma 2022 SB 2 (Public only) Save Women’s Sports Act
South Carolina 2021 H4608 Save Women’s Sports Act
South Dakota 2022 SB 46 (Public only) Act to Protect Fairness in Women’s Sports
Tennessee 2021 HB 2316 and 2021 SB 2153 and 2023 SB 15 Save Women’s Sports Act
Utah 2022 HB 11 (Appeal to a commission possible following medical transition) Student Eligibility in Interscholastic Activities.
West Virginia 2021 HB 3293 (State institutions only)