[Mis]Interpreting Title IX: How Opponents of Transgender Equality Are Twisting the Meaning of Sex Discrimination in School Sports
![handle is hein.journals/nyuls45 and id is 697 raw text is: [MIS]INTERPRETING TITLE IX: HOW OPPONENTS OF
TRANSGENDER EQUALITY ARE TWISTING THE
MEANING OF SEX DISCRIMINATION IN SCHOOL
SPORTS
SHAYNA MEDLEY°
ABSTRACT
Anti-trans advocates have created a smokescreen-painting transgender peo-
ple as a threat to cisgender women and girls-in order to push their latest legis-
lation targeting trans students' participation in school sports. This Article rebuts
the argument that there are competing sex discrimination interests when it comes
to school athletics and challenges the idea that rights and opportunities for cis-
gender women and girls are threatened when transgender people are treated
equally. Anti-trans sports bans are not based in science or reality. Rather, science
serves as a post hoc justification for race and sex stereotypes about women and
sports. A look into the origins of sex testing in sports makes it abundantly clear
that sex testing and trans exclusion is part and parcel of a long history of gender
policing of women, girls, and nonbinary people, particularly people of color. Laws
or policies that force people to prove their gender through invasive testing are
antithetical to gender equality goals and only further entrench race and sex ste-
reotypes. I argue that when such bans target students, they contravene federal law
and the Constitution. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Bostock v. Clayton
County made clear that anti-trans discrimination is sex discrimination. I argue
that there is no way for opponents to distinguish the breadth of Bostock's holding
from applying to school sports under Title IX-nor can these laws survive consti-
tutional analysis. An examination of the asserted state interests in recent sports
bans reveals that they are rooted in anti-trans animus and sex stereotypes, not a
genuine interest in women's sports and gender equity.
oo Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School; Litigation Staff Attorney, Transgender Legal
Defense & Education Fund; J.D., Harvard Law School, 2017; B.A. Brandeis University, 2012. Many
thanks to Rachel Slepoi, J.D. candidate, University of Virginia School of Law, for excellent research
assistance. Thank you to Sarah Alsaden, Lauren Bateman, Carl Charles, Travis Mannon, and
Alexandra Thompson for their thoughtful feedback. And thank you to Andrea Green, Winnie Vien,
Isaac Filat, and all of the editors at the N.Y. U. Review of Law & Social Change whose valuable
contributions greatly improved this piece.
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Imaged with Permission of N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nyuls45&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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