Nassau County, N.Y., took another attempt at a ban on transgender athletes by vote of their county legislature after an attempt to push the measure through by executive order earlier this year.
The bill passed, 12-5, in a strict party-line vote. The measure would ban any sports team that allows transgender women and girls to play in a women’s competition from use of over 100 facilities owned by the County. Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who put forth the executive order in February, is expected to sign the bill into law.
A filled legislative chamber heard opposing citizens and legislators criticize the measure, and taking particular exception to Blakeman’s role.
“We’re using this as a divisive issue for political benefit,” Democratic legislator Scott Davis said. “This is merely weaponizing an issue and that the only people who are going to suffer from it are members of the trans community.”
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Democratic legislator Seth Kuslow agreed.
“We’re spending all this time fighting about blatantly illegal legislation that does not affect Nassau County,” Kuslow said. “We’re essentially being asked to vote on whether we want to defend another lawsuit.”
Nassau’s administration has faced two court cases on this issue.
In April a federal court denied a lawsuit initiated by Blakeman that would not allow New York Attorney General Letitia James to pursue legal action against the county on violations of New York state human rights law.
In May, the executive order itself was stricken down by the Nassau County supreme court in a lawsuit filed by the Long Island Roller Rebels roller derby team. Proponent legislators, and the lawyer who sold their case in Monday’s hearing, say the legal defeats at the county and state levels don’t matter. They believe they have the federal legal high ground.
County Attorney Victoria LaGreca stated that New York’s human rights law is “diametrically opposed to federal law in terms of Title IX and federal law supersedes state law.”
In the hearing LaGreca also rattled off the usual litany of anti-trans arguments from claims of “stolen stolen scholarships” to safety risks extrapolated from studies that did not measure any transgender women within.
The next destination for the bill, after Blakeman signs it, will most likely be a federal courtroom at some level. This year alone has seen a similar attempts in West Virginia and court actions extended in Arizona and Idaho. In May, 21 Republican-controlled states filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration over guidelines for protecting transgender students in part because of the sports issue in school even though the new regulation have no direct guidance on the matter.
