When It Comes to Trans Sports Bans, Don’t Be Fooled by the Language of ‘Protection’

A smiling white governor, encircled by smiling white girls and women, signs a bill to ban trans girls from competing in school sports. Photo after photo, this snapshot recurs in news stories about the latest state law — from Iowa to Oklahoma to Florida — to discriminate against trans student-athletes. The celebratory air — the smiles and the applause — reverberating throughout this enclave of whiteness is chilling.

The photo is an allegory representing the feigned concern to “protect” cisgender female student-athletes by discriminating against transgender student-athletes. The staged scene is akin to the hateful rhetoric, with white cisgender girls as the pawns in the patriarchal game to control the body politic by literally controlling women’s and girls’ bodies.

It is, consequently, a terrible misconception to believe that this inhumane gender policing stops and ends with trans kids who just want to play sports. Florida, for example, currently demands that female student-athletes report their menstrual cycles in Florida High School Athletic Association’s medical forms (a requirement that the association just last month voted to remove from the 2023–2024 form).

Currently, 18 states ban trans girls from participating in girls’ sports, and with the recent Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives, in early February U.S. Rep. W. Gregory Steube, R-Fla., introduced the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023,” which seeks to restrict Title IX benefits to those educational institutions that ban trans women from participating on women’s sports teams.

To conjure an air of feminism, the language of protection is couched in that of “fairness” and “equality” — the specific language upon which conservatives are anchoring their claims to Title IX to perpetrate discrimination against trans athletes. As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said upon signing the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” “We’re going to protect fairness in women’s sports.” Or, as Iowa’s governor Kim Reynold’s said after signing her state’s ban, “It’s a fairness issue.” Fairness, in my estimation, is code for discrimination and, more insidiously, operates upon and reinforces the gender binary.

Critically, the hateful web threaded by this language is devised to fabricate a threat to divide women and set them in opposition to each other using the guise of protection. The white patriarch swoops in and claims he will “protect” cisgender girls to — advocates like the conservative Christian nonprofit Family Policy Alliance say — “save girls’ sports.” Just as we’ve seen him swoop in to “protect” women from trans people using public restrooms, again, under the false premise that trans people are predators. It is a logic projection: to call those very people who “threaten” the gender binary “threats” to public safety — when, in fact, abundant evidence shows that the only ones harmed are the trans and gender-nonconforming folks who just want to live their lives in peace, and to participate and belong in society without fear of violence.

When it comes to these sports bills, this patriarchal divide and conquer strategy not only dehumanizes and ostracizes trans kids but creates the illusion that the so-called protectors are actually taking steps to really protect — as in, provide care and safety for — women, all women.

These bills, in other words, reveal the hypocrisy of politicians who pretend to care about women. Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA World Cup champion Becky Sauerbrunn clearly explained both the argument and the hypocrisy in an opinion piece for Missouri’s Springfield News-Leader last month addressing the proposed “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which would bar trans girls from participating on girls’ teams: “The bills up for discussion in the [Missouri] Senate this week seek to solve a problem that simply doesn’t exist, and instead are sidelining youth from an outlet that brings them joy, connection and purpose.” She continued:

The bills don’t consider any of the actual challenges to women and girls in sport. The proposed “Save Women’s Sports Act” does nothing to protect or support girls and women in sports. If those putting forth this legislation actually listened to the needs and concerns of women in sports, they would outline clear steps to protect women and girls from the rampant sexual assault and harassment plaguing sports — issues we’ve been fighting in the [National Women’s Soccer League]. They would clarify what’s being done to ensure all institutions in Missouri are Title IX compliant. They would outline a plan to promote equal pay for women athletes. They would ensure young women and girls have equitable resources in sport, especially young women and girls of color. Instead, they’re pushing kids away from the life-changing power of sports, forever depriving them of the invaluable lessons sport teaches, and the best friends they would find on their teams.

Take what has transpired in Florida as one example of this hypocrisy: DeSantis signed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” in June 2021, proclaiming, “As a father of two daughters, I want my girls, and every girl in Florida, to compete on an even playing field for the opportunities available to young women in sports,” and noting that “women have fought for decades to have equal opportunities in athletics, and we have to prevent those opportunities from being eroded.”

Yet, just one year later, Florida state officials stated that they will not follow new federal Title IX rules presented by the Biden Administration. Title IX, of course, is the very federal law responsible for the even playing field and opportunities for women that DeSantis claims to want.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds gleefully signed the ban on trans youth in girls’ sports last March, asserting that the new law reflects the state’s “impressive legacy of advancing women’s equality.” But at the same time, she has also labored to ban abortion at six weeks, even in cases of rape or incest.

If these politicians really wanted to protect women, they would advocate for legislation that protects women’s bodily autonomy. Instead, their language of protection is code for discrimination and a cloak for bodily control over women’s bodies.

Of course, the language of protection, framed as the protection of white women and girls, as code to exact violence against marginalized people is not new. It’s the same language used to police and lynch Black boys and men for generations. The same language materializing in the horrific murder of Emmett Till. It is the same language underlying the paranoid “great replacement theory” — that racial minorities are plotting to eradicate white people — that has inspired racist mass shootings like the one in Buffalo, New York, in 2022.

The language is embedded in America’s culture of whiteness and white supremacy. “Protecting” the so-called white race means “protecting” the means of social (re)production, which means controlling bodies to control various populations. This logic of whiteness inextricably informs the policing of female and feminine-presenting bodies and, more critically, the parameters of the gender binary. The white supremacist patriarchy needs the gender binary to remain intact in order for it to survive. So, the strategic reach of the logic extends to legislating and litigating against people considered threats to the gender binary — those who subvert or refuse or queer the binary. The ones who expose the binary as a fallacy.

It is crucial not to misconstrue anti-trans legislation as a “wedge” issue, language that only serves to further marginalize and blame trans girls and women for politicians’ continued failure to care and provide government supports to redress systemic misogyny and discrimination. The fact is that such legislation affects all of us because it is essentially about policing the gender binary and controlling women’s bodies.

Any time a female athlete is “too good,” her gender is thrown into doubt — need we mention the decades of dehumanizing racism and misgendering the Williams’ sisters experienced simply because they were excellent. Or take, more recently, the female high school student whose gender was investigated after she won first place at a state-level competition when the parents of the second- and third-place finishers complained to officials. (After examining her school records since kindergarten, the officials confirmed her female gender.)

We must understand the language of protection for what it is: racist, misogynist, and transphobic code to wrest bodily autonomy from all women.