New York County Legislature Passes Transgender Athlete Ban

A county legislature in New York voted on Monday to bar transgender athletes from playing at county-owned facilities unless they compete on teams matching the gender they were assigned at birth or on coed teams.

The vote, in Nassau County on Long Island, followed months of debate after the county executive, Bruce Blakeman, issued an executive order in February instituting a similar ban. In May, a judge ruled that Mr. Blakeman did not have the authority to impose such a ban, a decision Mr. Blakeman is appealing.

That court found that only a legislative body could pass such a measure, and so the battle moved to the majority-Republican Nassau County Legislature, which voted 12 to 5 in favor of the ban (two legislators were absent). The bill now heads to Mr. Blakeman’s desk to be signed into law.

Over more than two hours of sometimes raucous discussion and public comment leading up to the vote, tensions ran high in the legislative chamber. Weighted accusations were traded and a number of unrelated issues discussed in a debate that illustrated how contentious the issue of transgender athletes has become.

The bill states that sports leagues or organizations that apply for permits to use county parks department facilities must designate their teams as male, female or coed based on members’ assigned sex at birth. It is primarily concerned with the participation of transgender women in women’s sports but would apply to all transgender children and adults.

Transgender advocates packed the chamber’s public seating, holding pink and purple signs that read “trans women are women.”