State Attorney General Letitia James filed go well with Monday to dam a newly-signed Nassau County legislation that bans transgender athletes from taking part in ladies and women sports activities at county-owned athletic amenities.
The AG’s workplace filed the go well with moments after Nassau County Government Bruce Blakeman signed the transgender ban legislation — handed by the native Republican-led legislature final month — into legislation.
Republican Blakeman initially sought to provoke the prohibition on organic males figuring out as females from taking part in ladies’s sports activities via executive order — however the edict was tossed out in court docket following a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Lengthy Island Curler Rebels.
Democrat James is becoming a member of the authorized struggle in spherical 2 in opposition to the transgender ban, becoming a member of the NYCLU, which filed a separate go well with difficult the legislation in Nassau County Supreme Courtroom.
Throughout a press convention Monday, Blakeman stated it’s unfair for trans ladies and women to compete in opposition to organic females, given scientific proof that organic males on the entire are stronger, greater and quicker than ladies.
“We’re defending the integrity, equity and security in ladies’s sports activities. It’s a matter of frequent sense,” he stated.
He additionally famous that one of many world’s most well-known transgender individuals — Caitlyn Jenner — backs the ban.
The previous athlete, né Bruce Jenner, gained the 1976 gold medal for the decathlon and famously appeared on the cover of the Wheaties cereal box.
“She stood right here with us and stated, `You’re doing the proper factor,’” Blakeman stated of Jenner.
However James claimed the Nassau ban violates New York legal guidelines forbidding discrimination based mostly on a resident’s gender id or expression.
“With this legislation, Nassau County is as soon as once more trying to exclude transgender women and girls from taking part in sporting occasions whereas claiming to help equity,” James stated in an announcement accompanying the lawsuit.
“NYCLU and the Lengthy Island Curler Rebels gained their first lawsuit and County Government Blakeman’s transphobic government order was struck down as a result of it was blatantly unlawful. Now this discriminatory legislation should be as effectively,” she stated. “Right here in New York, each individual has the proper to be precisely who they’re free from discrimination, and my workplace will at all times shield that proper.”
NYCLU workers lawyer Gabriella Lario stated Nassau County’s “relentless efforts to close transgender ladies and women out of sports activities will go away an enduring stain” on elected officers.
“It’s abundantly clear that any try to ban trans ladies and women from sports activities is prohibited by our state’s anti-discrimination legal guidelines. It was true once we efficiently struck down County Government Blakeman’s transphobic coverage and it’s true now. This newest spherical of hateful laws is unacceptable and we gained’t let it stand in New York,” Lario stated in asserting the group’s personal lawsuit in opposition to the ban.
The authorized struggle in Nassau is a microcosm of the talk over transgender athletes competing in opposition to ladies taking part in out throughout the nation — with conservatives backing bans and liberals opposing them.
Blakeman stated Monday he hasn’t heard any opposition on the bottom from the LGBT group in Nassau. He stated he has heard particularly from lesbian athletes who help the ban.
“There are a number of folks on the market with a slender view who say that is an anti-transgender invoice — and it’s not,” he stated.
A Siena Faculty ballot launched in April discovered that 66% of voters in New York support a ban on transgender athletes competing in opposition to women, whereas solely 27% of respondents opposed “requiring highschool athletes to solely compete with others of the identical intercourse that they have been assigned at beginning.”
Robust help for a prohibition crossed social gathering, racial, ethnic and regional traces. Solely voters who recognized themselves as “liberal” opposed the ban.