In opposition to transgender athlete ban
Last Saturday, June 24, protestors met on the steps of the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in a rally of discontent against the Blakeman administration’s transgender athlete ban. The ban was introduced by the legislative Republican majority as an executive order earlier this year, with the goal of “protecting girls sports,” according to Blakeman and his team. Despite initially being struck down by a judge, that bill was passed on June 24, the day of the protest.
Juli Grey-Owens, Executive Director of Gender Equality New York, organized the rally and called out the legislature’s Republican majority for imposing the ban with no evidence of injuries by transgender women in female sports games in Nassau County, Long Island or New York State. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, cited injuries to three girls by a biological male in a basketball game in New England and injuries to girls on a Maryland volleyball team by a biological male.
A leader in opposition of the ban, Nassau County Legislator Arnold W. Drucker (D-Woodbury), attended the rally and condemned the bill, urging community members to keep fighting.
Alongside civil liberty advocates, parents of transgender youth, and LGBTQ+ community members and their allies protested the Blakeman administration and Republican Legislative Majority’s approval of a measure that prohibits the leasing of County parks facilities to any team that permits transgender female athletes to participate on women’s sports teams – an action that has been denounced by New York State Attorney General Letitia James as “blatantly illegal.” The New York State Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, credit, places of public accommodation, internships, domestic services, volunteer firefighting, and private, non-sectarian educational institutions based upon actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
The rally occurred on the eve of the 55th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising – an event widely considered the start of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.
“County Executive Blakeman and the Republican Majority on the Legislature passed a law that is repugnant, unconscionable, and downright disgusting. As my colleagues on the Minority Caucus expressed our outage at this illegal effort, we were emboldened, inspired, and empowered by all of you,” Deputy Minority Leader Drucker told protestors. “I have every confidence that, with the enshrinement of GENDA in New York State law, this unfounded, patently illegal will be overturned.”
Nassau County lawmakers voted 12-5 to pass the legislation. The law would not apply to Nassau County’s boys’ and men’s sports teams or co-ed teams. Blakeman is expected to sign the newly passed legislation into law.
“The bill that passed on June 24 is the sentiment of narrow and closed-minded people who can never accept the basic human rights notion that the freedom to live our individual, unencumbered lives is undeniable and worth of every ounce of our fiber to preserve it,” Deputy Minority Leader Drucker continued. “I implore you to take pen to paper or fingers to keyboard keys and contact every Legislator you can think of to let them know that you are watching, the world is watching – and history is watching.”
To learn more about the history and development of this policy, as well as additional voices at the rally, visit our common page section.
