1. United States
2. N.Y.
3. Letter

The House of Representatives has introduced a federal ban on transgender people in sports, to be voted on January 14th. As your constituent, I insist that you VOTE “NO” on this bill. The supposed “advantages” afforded to transgender individuals by their birth sex are practically negligible after hormone therapy. Furthermore, many of the sports covered by the ban - such as darts, chess, and horseback riding - do not rely on the physical prowess that testosterone provides and thus have no reason to be banned. There are only 10 transgender athletes participating in NCAA member schools - not nearly enough to cause any real and present danger even if an athlete’s physique were a problem. Across all sports in which trans athletes compete, none of them win at a rate enough to warrant their expulsion on the basis of “unfair advantage”. Transgender bans like these also dangerously increase the level of scrutiny levied at female athletes. More and more women will be accused of being transgender should they succeed in their field. Look at how people talk about accomplished woman athletes on the Olympic level - Katie Ledecky, for instance, has received loads of hate, accusations of “secretly being a man”, simply for being the best in her sport. This completely defeats the purpose of “protecting women’s sports” - if a woman cannot do well in her field without fielding accusations that she’s lying about herself or giving herself an unfair advantage, then we will have achieved the exact opposite of what these laws set out to do. These bans were counterproductive and irrational when they were issued at the state level; a federal ban will be no different. If you really want to protect women’s sports, VOTE ‘NO’ on the federal trans sports ban!!!