How Anti-Trans Bills Evoke The Culture Wars Of The 90s

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🗓️ 27 May 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Proponents of trans female athlete bans struggle to cite examples of trans women or girls gaining an unfair advantage in sports competitions. But amid a lot of debate about fairness, there's been less attention on science. NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman spoke to a pioneering trans researcher who explains why — in most sports — trans women can compete fairly against cisgender women.

Behind a recent spate of anti-trans state laws, LGBTQ communities see a new chapter in a familiar story: the culture wars that broke out in America in the 1990s. A new episode of the FX documentary miniseries Pride examines that era. It was directed by Academy-Award nominee Yance Ford, who tells NPR why the culture wars of the 90s are so relevant today.

Additional reporting on the legal debate over Idaho's ban on trans female athletes from our colleague Melissa Block.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There's something you hear over and over again in the debate over transgender athletes in school sports.
0:06.0	Or rather, something you don't hear.
0:08.8	Have you had a single example of a transgender child trying to gain unfair competitive advantage?
0:15.2	No, I have not.
0:16.8	Last month, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice signed a bill banning trans women and girls from school sports.
0:23.2	But when we asked him about it, he could not cite a single example of a trans athlete in his state gaining an unfair advantage.
0:31.5	Then why sign such a bill?
0:34.0	Because evidently, evidently it is out there and it, and you heard the same thing in Louisiana.
0:40.8	I'm not aware of any Mr. Chairman. I'm not aware of any.
0:44.6	Where state Senator Beth Meisel called the bill banning trans female athletes preemptive.
0:49.8	So it's not a problem in Louisiana now?
0:52.0	Not in Louisiana.
0:53.6	An in Georgia, a lawyer from the conservative Christian advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.
0:58.6	One of the driving forces behind many proposed trans athlete bands struggled to answer this question from state Senator Elena Parent.
1:06.8	How many girls in Georgia have been denied opportunity because of transgender athletes?
1:12.6	Yeah. So obviously there's not a lot of statistics on that, but I go back to the...
1:16.2	The lawyer Matt Sharp mentioned one case from several years ago in Connecticut.
1:22.0	So there are none in Georgia.
1:23.2	Again, I don't have any part in it on that.
1:26.0	It's not just those three states.
1:28.0	Back in March, the Associated Press reached out to lawmakers in more than 20 states who had proposed bills to ban transgender female athletes from school sports.
1:37.2	In almost every case, sponsors of those laws could not cite a single instance in their own state or region
	...

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