8 Oct 31st-NOv 6th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Bigoted Ban Arizona GOP leaders ask Supreme Court to reinstate anti-trans sports law. BY MORGAN FISCHER T hree of Arizona’s most powerful Republicans are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate a 2022 law banning transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports. Just don’t ask them how many such athletes there actually are. On Oct. 17, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, Senate President Warren Petersen and outgoing Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma filed a cert petition asking the Supreme Court to intervene in Doe v. Horne. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of two prepubescent transgender athletes to challenge the Save Women’s Sports Act, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in 2022. The law barred transgender girls from competing in women’s sports in Arizona’s K-12 public and private systems, as well as in university undergrad and graduate school. Last year, a federal judge ruled the law violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision in September. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has declined to defend the law in court. In a statement released Oct. 17 by “the Republican-led Arizona Legislature” — which misgendered the two students involved in the suit as “two boys” — Petersen said he’s “confident the U.S. Supreme Court will make it clear — Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act should be enforced. “We cannot remain silent and allow these wrongs against women and girls to continue,” Petersen’s statement added. The GOP effort to reinstate the ban outraged education advocates and LGBTQ+ groups. Madalaine Adelman, the founder of LGBTQ+ education advocacy organization GLSEN Arizona, wrote to Phoenix New Times that “banning students who are trans from youth sports — on top of parallel attempts to diminish parents’ rights to protect their trans chil- dren — sends a terribly harmful message to young people.” Chris Kotterman, the director of governmental relations for the Arizona School Boards Association, noted that prolonging the lawsuit negatively affects the district involved, Kyrene Elementary School District, which “will have to spend more resources defending this law that they didn’t ask for.” To Tyler Kowch, a spokesperson for the education organization Save Our Schools, the GOP cares less about protecting girls’ sports and more about perpetuating transphobia. “They are trying to ‘other’ these queer students to create a scapegoat they can attack to help their electoral odds,” Kowch said in a statement. “At the end of the day, every child should have the freedom to play sports with their friends.” Clueless If Petersen says trans sports participation constitutes “wrongs against women and girls,” how many such wrongs actually are occurring? How widespread is this supposed scourge of boys changing their genders to play girls’ sports? Toma, Petersen and Horne have no idea. New Times asked the Arizona Department of Education how many trans- gender athletes — that is, athletes assigned male at birth — participated in girls’ sports throughout the state’s public schools during the 2023-24 school year. The Department responded that it “doesn’t track information such as that” and referred New Times to the Arizona Interscholastic Association, which over- sees school athletics in the state. But the AIA doesn’t track that informa- tion either, according to spokesperson Seth Polansky. “The entire process is confidential between the submitting family, the school and the AIA’s Sports Medicine Advisory Committee,” Polansky said in an email. “And only a select few members of SMAC are part of the process. Also, due to poten- tial litigation and legislation, the AIA cannot comment about anything related to the process.” As Kotterman noted, Republicans never had those answers, even when they were pushing for the law to pass. At the time the Save Women’s Sports Act was working through the legislature, Kotterman said, those testifying in support of it fumbled the answer to an easy question: Is there an issue with trans girls dominating girls’ sports in Arizona? “They kept referring to out- of-state issues,” Kotterman said. “When they’re testifying before the Arizona State Legislature trying to pass an Arizona Law and they can’t provide you an example, to me that says something.” Kotterman reiterates that trans participation in girls’s sports “was not, and is not, a widespread issue that we thought mandated statewide attention via the legislature.” So, if no one knows whether trans- gender girls really are playing girls’ sports — much less wreaking havoc on the competition — what exactly is the problem? Why are Republicans so worked up about it? The court case New Times asked Horne’s department the same question: Where’s the evidence this is happening, and why involve the Supreme Court without it? Spokesperson Doug Nick pointed New Times to the website of America First Legal, which moved to intervene in Doe v. Horne last year. The conservative group trumpets that it’s “fighting back against lawless executive actions in the Radical Left” and has filed several lawsuits in pursuit of right-wing causes. Two years ago, the Trump-aligned organization sent flyers to Latino voters in Colorado containing misinformation about trans people. But the webpage Nick refer- enced contains no information about how many transgender girls are playing girls’ sports in Arizona. At one point, there were at least two: the pair of students involved in the lawsuit. The two trans girls were 11 and 15 years old when the suit was filed in April 2023. They have identified as girls since they were 5 and 7 years old, respectively, and were on puberty-blocking medication after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, according to court documents. The 11-year-old had been playing girls’ soccer and basketball with no objections from her school. The 15-year-old was a member of her school’s girls’ volleyball team but was barred from competing due to the law. Though Republican lawmakers claimed in their statement that “boys have physio- logical advantages over girls” even before puberty hits, federal judge Jennifer Zipps disagreed when granting a preliminary injunction against the law last year. “Transgender girls who receive puberty- blocking medication do not have an athletic advantage over other girls,” she ruled. Additionally, the three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted that the Save Women’s Sports Act doesn’t prevent transgender men from playing in men’s sports and targets only transgender women. “Arizona’s transgender ban discrimi- nates on its face based on transgender status,” wrote Circuit Court Judge Morgan Christen in the panel’s ruling. “The Act treats transgender women and girls less favorably than other students,” as they are the only group barred from playing “on teams corresponding with their gender identities.” Whether the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to consider the Arizona law remains to be seen. The high court receives more than 7,000 cases a year and only accepts 100 to 150 of them, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. But if the court does take up the ques- tion, the Republicans defending the law have some homework to do. Before decrying the threat transgender athletes represent to girls’ sports, they might want to figure out how many such athletes there really are. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the Save Women’s Sports Act, which bars transgender girls and women from playing sports that align with their gender identities. (Photo by TJ L’Heureux) Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen claimed that transgender girls playing girls’ sports is a wrong “against women and girls.” (Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0) | NEWS | | NEWS |
