“I consider transgender women my teammates, not a threat,” – Napheesa Collier, Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) player with the Minnesota Lynx 

“For many transgender kids and young adults, sports offer[…]opportunity to improve their lives. It’s well documented that sports help children and young adults develop critical life skills like communication, teamwork and leadership. It also provides them with a community of peers with whom they can build lifelong friendships.” – Becky Sauerbraunn, NWSL and USWNT captain oped .

The new Trump administration kicked off its MAGA rule by executive order—LGBTQ+, particularly transgender, people are near the top of their list of targets. 

In less than 20 days, the onslaught of attacks against trans people—at work, at school, at the doctor’s office, and in the military—have been relentless. On day one, Trump signed an executive order declaring two binary sexes. On day 10, Trump signed an executive order banning life-saving gender-affirming care for people under age 19. On day 17, Trump signed an executive order banning transgender women and girls from competing in girls’ and womens’ sports, from elementary school through college.  

The Democrats haven’t fought in a meaningful way to prevent these attacks, including Congress’ first transgender representative Sarah McBride. McBride not only didn’t speak when an anti-trans sports bill was introduced in the House, but she thought it was correct to tell the New York Times that most of her Republican counterparts have been “warm and welcoming.” Eighty-one Democrats did Trump’s dirty work for him by voting to bar transgender children of military service-members from receiving gender-affirming healthcare coverage. 

Why Sports?

“Defending” women’s sports is a gateway for the rightwing to make attacks on transgender people and queer people more broadly. The right prefers that these sports bans ‘out’ young people and forces a gender-binary onto a society where transgender people ages 13-24 years old make up only ~1% of the U.S. population.

The right has used trans sports bans to take aim at dismantling public education, as a tool to cut funding based on “wokeness” and to systematically gut teachers’ unions. Trump is loyal to his billionaire buddies and therefore he will write orders to keep the working class divided and the labor movement weakened, under the guise of “protecting women and girls.”

These orders can be used beyond the scope of sports, especially if “sports” broadly encompass any school extracurriculars and programs. These orders are really aimed at eliminating transgender people from all areas of society.

Anti-Trans Laws Don’t Protect Women & Girls 

Over many years, the courts and politicians have used Title IX—the landmark case outlining equal funding for girls/women’s sports in schools and universities that receive federal funding—as a reason to ban trans athletes. 

In 2024, the Department of Education debated changes to Title IX despite hundreds of top women athletes and coaches fighting for gender inclusivity in the NCAA. Of the 510,000 athletes competing at the collegiate level, only about 10 publicly identify as trans. Rather than fight, the Biden administration kicked the can down the road because it was an election year. This helped lay the ground for Trump’s executive orders.

So what is the actual barrier to accessing athletics for women, despite the “separate but equal” provisions in Title IX? It isn’t transgender people, it’s funding and priorities. 

​​”What’s really harming women’s sports is an overall lack of investment, whether in resources for female athletes, opportunities to coach [or] lack of pay,” said Cheryl Reeve of the WNBA. “The notion that the motivation for transgender athletes is to gain scholarships or competitive advantage is a false narrative. Trans inclusion makes our sports, our teams and our communities stronger.”

Women’s sports are fertile ground for solidarity in fights for gender inclusivity because sexism is an integral feature to the divisiveness of the capitalist system. Girls and women have always had to fight discrimination, sexual harassment, and for the basic right to athletics. While it’s not automatic, this has produced a basis of solidarity in the fight against other forms of systemic oppression, including LGBTQ+ and racial equality. 

As Christen Press of the US Women’s National Team said, “We say even in women’s soccer, the difference between men’s sports and women’s sports is that we, in women’s sports, feel so connected because we’re all playing for a larger goal of respect, equity, and progress for women, and for all people, so while you root for your team, you’re kind a rooting for the sport and the growth of the sport.” 

There’s no documented connection between anti-transgender laws and increased safety from abuse amongst cisgendered women and girls. Bathroom bills and anti-trans legislation have been increasing in number since 2015, the year Obergfell vs. Hodges legalized gay marriage. But allegations of sexual harassment and unprofessionalism in the National Women’s Soccer League, documented in the widely covered Yates’ report, exposed rampant misconduct at all levels of competitive women’s/girl’s soccer for at least as long, perpetrated by cisgendered men. 

Cisgender male Larry Nassar was allowed to be the USA Gymnastics doctor for nearly two-decades, where he systematically preyed on mostly cis women athletes. Star striker from Spain, Jenni Hermoso was forcibly kissed on the World Cup stage by the federation head, Luis Rubiales. These are only the tip of the iceberg, incidents of assault and harassment from cis men that were public. 

In fact, Terry Schilling, leader of the American Principles Project, admitted that the focus on sports was never the true goal: “The women’s sports issue was really the beginning point in helping expose all this because what it did was, it got opponents of the LGBT movement comfortable with talking about transgender issues.” This phase of right-wing attacks have the clear goal of bringing legal challenge to Obergfell, to repeal gay marriage, after the right-wing’s success against Roe v. Wade.

The current Trump executive orders could genuinely mean adults looking down children’s pants to determine their teams for a recess game of flag football, a ghoulish future compared to one where trans children are allowed to play sports.

Traditional Family Values is Capitalism’s Stalking Horse

A wing of the establishment will always fight for “traditional family values” and scapegoat oppressed groups to advance their political and social agenda. 

Under capitalism, the notion of a “nuclear family” or ideas of “tradition” have served the direct purpose of reproducing the working class to keep the system running in the interests of an upper, ruling class. It took mass movements of the working class to outlaw child labor. Women have been pushed into and then pulled out of the workplaces of industrialized nations based on the needs of war and capitalism. What was once viewed as ‘natural’ changed under massive upheaval of the working class.

Lawmakers frequently struggle to cite cases of transgender athletes creating fairness issues in their districts, and at best point to a few high-profile cases of trans people being successful in sports, like swimmer Lia Thomas. Debate around gender in sports often boils down to whether someone receives a competitive or category advantage; every institution has different metrics and almost all are personally invasive. 

Athletes have different builds and play different roles on the field, and not every body-type excels in every position—that’s sports. The popularity of cis woman Ilona Meyer and the women’s rugby phenomena at the Summer 2024 Olympics is an example of this. And not every trans person wins every competition after transition. 

Imane Khelif, a cis-woman boxer, is currently suing an athletic governing body for adding fuel to a summer of transphobic attacks against her, a cis woman who is winning in her sport. When cis woman Barbra Banda faced attacks from JK Rowling after winning “Footballer of the Year” from the BBC, it was players who came to her defense. 

Expressions of competition in sports under capitalism are still a reflection of the dominant ideas and interests of the ruling class, which still views the gender binary and policing women’s bodies as useful to its aims in a deeply patriarchal system. And right now, the U.S. ruling class is reasserting the ideas of the nuclear family, the nation state, and the patriarchy to whip up nationalism in an era of anti-imperialist conflict. Given the vast majority of kids who play sports never become professional athletes, the primary impact is to socially ostracize trans kids so that they go back in the closet.

Take Up the Fight Everywhere

Teachers unions need to take up a fighting approach to end sports bans, bathroom bills, and join with other unions in every venue where these bills are used to limit workplace protections. We will need to fight taxpayer money going toward persecuting our transgender coworkers and classmates. When the bosses try to enforce bans, we can take action to defend our coworkers. For example, postal workers organized with the National Association of Letter Carriers defended a trans carrier’s right to use the bathroom at work—the boss had originally offered a porta-potty outside! In NYC, thousands protested an end to trans healthcare for minors at NYU-Langone hospital, one of the leading hospitals for gender-affirming care. 

We cannot rely on the Democratic Party, as an institution that has demonstrated it will not fight for trans people. We urgently need a new party that fights along class lines, and recognizes that any attacks on trans people are an attack on the working class as a whole.

The sad truth is that organizations that have already toed the line will likely remain spineless unless pushed to take concrete action in defense of transgender athletes, workers, and students. When USWNT player Korbin Albert was called out on-line for liking transphobic videos, players were angry at U.S. Soccer for not upholding its code of conduct. “We’re going to continue to do everything that we can as players to protect your safety and our safety, and to make the team and women’s soccer at large as safe and inclusive and as diverse and beautiful and interesting and challenging as we possibly can. And that’s our promise to you,” said Christen Press to fans in response.

The USWNT fight with US soccer for equal pay influenced the WNBA, and players in both leagues collaborated in negotiation on their collective bargaining agreement’s language on inclusivity. Players believe there’s more to be done explicitly on trans-athlete inclusion, and Trump’s latest executive orders mean reaching clarity on this is even more urgent.

Transgender people face immediate existential questions in the fight for healthcare and jobs. How many young trans people might have hurt themselves in the time between Trump’s executive order on trans healthcare and its legal blocking? We must fight for a world that allows trans people to have a full life in all facets of society. Young people need connection to thrive. Politics and movements spill into sports because they’re a venue of diversity and entertainment for society, and a platform for acts of solidarity. Socialist Alternative believes the fight for transgender people’s rights is imperative to the fight for a better world.