This has been accompanied by a slew of anti-trans policies which are systematically targeting trans Americans’ access to transition care and government programmes. Trump has particularly highlighted his intention to prevent trans women from participating in women’s sports, a commitment which may appear less drastic than his attack on trans healthcare but is indicative of his administration’s larger war on trans identity at every level of American society.
Systematically targeting trans Americans' access to transition care and government programmes
The issue of trans women competing in women’s sports has long sparked conservative backlash, with many attempts over the past decade to enact a comprehensive ban such as Trump is currently threatening. Whilst many voters are ambivalent on the issue, there is a significant proportion beyond Trump’s core base who oppose trans women competing in women’s sports, or the participation of trans athletes more broadly. This attitude is broadly underpinned by the false assumptions that transgender women possess inherent advantages over their cisgender counterparts, and that women are therefore disadvantaged compared to male athletes, assumptions which have consistently proven to be incorrect and malicious.
In contrast, multiple studies have concluded that trans women do not possess a biomedical advantage over cis women in sports, with nutrition, training and class backgrounds providing significant variations in the performance of an athlete of any gender that Trump’s biological unreality does not. Rather, the exclusion of trans athletes from participating in sports denies them of the wellbeing that the exercises and competitions can uniquely facilitate.
Multiple studies have concluded that trans women do not possess a biomedical advantage
Sports have well-documented benefits to our physical and mental health, as well as providing social and even academic opportunities, particularly in the context of school sports. Research into sports in schools and universities has demonstrated that participation in sports is linked to improved physical health, self-confidence and general wellbeing, with student athletes reportedly experiencing lower levels of anxiety and depression and higher academic performance. With transgender teenagers and students among the most vulnerable social groups in America, it should be the imperative of any government to secure opportunities such as sports as a form of exercise, self-expression, and socialisation which can provide all the benefits above. This would further negate some of the hostility and discrimination which devastatingly characterises the trans experience in America.
To deprive transgender athletes of these opportunities is an explicit attack on trans lives and wellbeing, an affront to the promises of freedom and flourishing which America is increasingly not even pretending to stand for. Make America Queer Again.