--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram here with Katie Barnes from ESPN to talk about the hot mess that is the debate over trans athletes in America.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We started with just what is going on with this issue right now. The short answer to that question is a lot is going on right now. The more complicated answer is that we're in the middle of a seriously intense shifting policy landscape. And those shifts are happening at an international level.
--:-- Katie Barnes: The international governing body over track and field announcing a ban that prevents transgender athletes from participating in female events after going through male puberty. At a national level, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a bill today banning transgender women from competing in school sports.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And at a local level, Senate Bill 15, filed by Republican Mays Middleton of Galveston, would require college athletes to play on sports teams based on their gender it's signed at birth.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And they're all different conversations about different types of sports. And so at the state level, in the last three years, really, if we go back to 2020, we've seen about 20 states pass restrictions of some kind when it comes to transgender athletes participating in school and collegiate sports.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Additionally, the House of Representatives recently passed a bill out of its chamber that would restrict transgender girls and women from participating in girls and women's sports at the school level.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And we're also seeing the Biden administration come out with a proposed regulatory shift in regards to Title IX and how Title IX applies to the question of transgender athletes participating in schools and collegiate sports.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is, without a doubt, a partisan issue. Transgender athletes, and in particular transgender girls and women participating in girls in women's sports, is an animating issue for conservatives in the United States and certainly for the Republican Party.
--:-- Katie Barnes: House Republicans pledged before the last election their commitment to America to protect women and girls in sports. Today we kept that promise. So the House passed House Resolution 734, again, along party lines.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's a very simple bill that would restrict transgender girls and women from participating in girls and women's sports. Radical interpretations of Title IX have allowed men to slowly encroach more and more on women's competitions.
--:-- Katie Barnes: American women and girls deserve better than what Democrats are doing to them. At its simplest distillation, basically what the bill says is that for sports purposes, sex will be determined by your reproductive biology and your genetics at birth.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So even if you change your birth certificate, that doesn't necessarily matter. And it mirrors a lot of what we've seen from a legislative perspective at the state level, using similar language, similar ways to restrict participation, and then further restrict the category of women's sports by saying that anyone who is not designated or assigned female at birth is not eligible for that category.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And will Resolution 734 go anywhere with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House? Likely no, for the reason that you alluded to in your question. Biden would veto such legislation more than likely, and the Senate is unlikely to take it up for as long as the Democrats hold control of the chamber.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And while we're on President Biden, tell us what he just proposed recently. What has happened is that President Biden and the Department of Education has proposed a regulatory change in how Title IX is regulated.
--:-- Katie Barnes: The proposal would mean any blanket policy prohibiting transgender athletes from competing would violate Title IX. That the law that prohibits sex discrimination by schools that receive government funding.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Title IX despite being known for being the legislation and the law that caused the creation of women's sports, actually doesn't say anything about sports in the law.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Yeah, it's only 37 words long. No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded. From participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the activities part is where we get to sports. And so after that law was passed in 1972, then there was a series of hearings and regulatory decisions about, okay, what is this actually going to look like.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And that happened in 1975, where the then Department of Education, which was called something different at that time, went through the process of creating these regulations for what Title IX practically is going to look like from an implementation perspective.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so what the Biden administration is proposing is a shift in those regulations in terms of how Title IX will be implemented and how education institutions and schools and those who are held accountable against Title IX will be evaluated in terms of whether or not they are in compliance.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Practically, what it means is that the Biden administration, from the regulatory proposal that they have publicly released, is that these categorical bans that exist in a number of these states and these broad restrictions that exist in a number of these states are not something that the administration believes is allowable under Title IX.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Education Department said very clearly yesterday that these blanket bans that we're seeing, like the one in Kansas, violate Title IX under this proposal.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And so the legislation itself, in terms of how they restrict transgender athletes, isn't just talking about high school. It's not just talking about Division I athletics, the overwhelming majority of these laws restrict transgender girls and, in some cases, transgender boys from participating in sports in accordance to their gender identity all the way down to elementary school and all the way up to intramural-level college participation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, functionally, what that means, what the Biden administration is saying is that seven-year-old soccer, second grade, third grade soccer, is not the same as Division I competitive swimming.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And that's also not the same as club hockey at your college. And that's also not the same as women's intramural flag football.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The idea that was going on, you know, in some states, I won't get into the politics of it, but in some states, it's just, it's outrageous. and I think it's immoral.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Let's talk about this practically for a second here. So this Biden rule, how would it apply to say a, I don't know, a seven-year-old trans girl who wants to swim in her elementary school swim meet?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Biden regulations would say that if a state is passing legislation that would try to restrict her participation, it would likely not be in compliance with the regulation.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Same thing if that was happening at like, a school level as well. If a school was enacting a rule that would restrict that participation, they wouldn't comply with the policy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Which means that they would be risking their funding.
--:-- Katie Barnes: More than likely, yes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay. Let's up the ante here. How about a 17-year-old trans teenager who is really good at running the 100 meter?
--:-- Katie Barnes: From what I was able to glean from these proposed regulations, if that athlete was trying to compete in a state that had restrictive policies or the school was trying to restrict that athlete from participating on the girls track team, they would have to make a compelling argument to the Department of Education for why that athlete should not be allowed to compete beyond simply, well, they're assigned male at birth and therefore have an advantage.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So at that level, it gets kind of case by case?
--:-- Katie Barnes: I would say so. But I also think that the administration is not necessarily proposing a rule that says, well, each individual athlete is going to go through this regulatory process.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Rather, it is, from a regulatory standpoint, it is saying, here's the kind of restrictions that will not pass muster. if you are going to restrict an athlete, here are the types of things that we will consider.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And then you have to make the case. But then they also go on to say, but you can't just say because they're trans. It has to be more compelling than that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It sounds like the Biden administration is trying to find some nuance in a debate that doesn't have a lot of nuance.
--:-- Katie Barnes: That is correct. And that's all over the document.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think it's worth saying that, again, you know, I talked about how Title IX is 37 words.
--:-- Katie Barnes: The proposal, like the actual regulation from the Biden administration is only a few sentences.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But the document explaining the context for that change and the thought process and also the regulatory process that this proposal underwent is 116 pages long.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Oh, what? That feels like cheating.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was, honestly, it was quite a surprise to me too.
--:-- Katie Barnes: So it's a lot of information.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in there, in that document, is a lot of wrestling with, here's what the International Olympic Committee is proposing for its elite athletes.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Here's what our United States national governing bodies are doing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they are making a distinction between their elite level athletes and their participatory younger athletes.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And so specifically, the proposed regulations pointed to USA Gymnastics, USA Volleyball as examples of national governing bodies that are making these distinctions as well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so it a very nuanced heavy document trying to thread a very small very specific needle in a politically charged conversation
--:-- Katie Barnes: So this Biden Title IX adjustment is it happening or is it a proposal?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When does this become real, if ever?
--:-- Katie Barnes: So it's a proposal in that it is now open for public comment and will remain open for public comment for the next few weeks.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But then once that public comment is closed, they will finalize the regulation and it will go into effect.
--:-- Katie Barnes: More with Katie in a minute on Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards.
--:-- Katie Barnes: These days, it seems like everybody has a rewards program. You swipe your card and you get one cent on the hundred dollars.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But with your rent, frequently, you just pay month after month. You never get anything from it other than that roof over your head.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Not anymore, says Built Rewards.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Built Rewards says it lets you earn points on your rent.
--:-- Katie Barnes: By paying rent through Bilt, they say you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, perhaps a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Your home isn't just where you sleep, it's your community, and Bilt wants you to go out and do things in the community.
--:-- Katie Barnes: You can eat at your favorite local restaurants, then earn more points.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios.
--:-- Katie Barnes: You can enjoy exclusive experiences just for Bilt members every month.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When you're ready to travel, they say Bilt points can be converted to miles or hotel points all around the world.
--:-- Katie Barnes: You can earn points on rent and around your neighborhood wherever you call home by joining Bilt.com slash Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash Explained.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We resolve queries fast. We work 24-7 and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic.
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--:-- Katie Barnes: Today Explained, we are back with Katie Barnes from ESPN talking about trans athletes in American sports.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Katie, the last time we covered this issue in 2021, the vibes were that there actually weren't very many trans athletes in American sports.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Has that changed in the past two years?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not really.
--:-- Katie Barnes: There aren't that many. Still.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The reality is that very few young people identify as transgender, although that number is, of course, rising, because of young people's ability to access language and discover their identities in a different way than certainly I had access to growing up in rural Indiana in the 90s.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And so, despite, I think, all of this general panicky feeling about transgender athletes sort of dominating women's sports in general, the reality is that there are very few competing, and there are even fewer competing with championship-level success.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And one of the examples of that is actually out of Utah. In 2022, the governor of Utah vetoed a bill that would have restricted transgender girls from participating in girls and women's sports in that state at the school level.
--:-- Katie Barnes: If you have not spent time with transgender youth, then I would encourage you to pause on this issue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the reason given by the governor was that at that moment, only four athletes competing in the state at that time were known to be trans, and only one of them was a transgender girl.
--:-- Katie Barnes: These kids are, they're just trying to stay alive.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so there are these examples of singular or a few athletes in these states, but the AP did a story asking the legislators who were proposing these bills to identify athletes in their states who are trans and who are competing and causing a problem in women's sports, so to speak.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And the overwhelming majority of those legislators couldn't name a local case.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so the reality is that when we talk about this issue, there are a handful of names that come up consistently.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Leah Thomas, right, the University of Pennsylvania swimmer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Trans people don't transition for athletics.
--:-- Katie Barnes: We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Transitioning to get an advantage is not something that ever factors into our decisions.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Stacey Telfer, who won a Division II national championship in the 400-meter hurdles in 2019, who ran at Franklin Pierce University.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm a female athlete, so I compete in female sports.
--:-- Katie Barnes: The trans aspect of it is just used to define something that people cannot understand.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: However, at the end of the day, we are women, we are female athletes as well, and we should be treated and seen as such.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And then at the high school level, you have like Andrea Yearwood and Terry Miller, who are transgender girls from Connecticut, who won a number of state championships in that state.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They've both started hormone therapy and say that for the most part, they've been welcomed by friends, family, coaches and administrators with open arms.
--:-- Katie Barnes: But there is some backlash from parents and students.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Two petitions were even started in an attempt to change the current rule of the state's governing body of interscholastic sports.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And Mac Beggs, a transgender boy from Texas who was a wrestler and won a girls' state championship because of a specific circumstance of overlapping policies that required him to wrestle in the girls' wrestling category, even though most states don't actually have a girls' wrestling category.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My goal was always just to make it to state.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Like, I never thought that I would actually win it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I worked hard for it.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And so those are kind of the names that come up a lot, and there are a couple of others, but there aren a huge number of athletes competing
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in fact through young transgender people speaking out about this legislation we heard a number of different stories of transgender girls whose athletic experience reflects, frankly, something of my own growing up in Indiana playing basketball.
--:-- Katie Barnes: I was a perfectly serviceable varsity point guard, but that was the extent of my athletic experience.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so an example of that is Becky Pepper Jackson, who is the plaintiff in the West Virginia case currently being heard by the Fourth Circuit of Appeals.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And she's 12 years old and is a cross-country runner, and her whole family runs, and she just wants to run with her friends in middle school.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's it.
--:-- Katie Barnes: 12-year-old Becky Pepper Jackson can continue to compete on her school's track and field team while her lawsuit against West Virginia's ban on trans athletes competing on girls teams winds its way through the court.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case at this point.
--:-- Katie Barnes: So Becky can continue to compete for now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I would say that for every, like, Leah Thomas example, there are a number of athletes who have been competing and participating in sports largely without incident because they don't win in a controversial manner in their category.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And so therefore are nationally uninteresting.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right.
--:-- Katie Barnes: But I imagine some Americans take issue with a trans woman winning a competitive college-level swim meet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is that basically how this breaks down in terms of popular opinion?
--:-- Katie Barnes: In my professional experience, I'm inclined to say you're likely correct.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: However, the polling that we have doesn't make that distinction.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And frankly, the legislation doesn't make that distinction either.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So there's an NPR poll that came out last year that said that two-thirds, roughly, of Americans are opposed to allowing transgender women and girls to compete on teams that align with their gender identities.
--:-- Katie Barnes: No matter what cohort, what age group?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That question wasn't asked.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Because largely, this issue isn't necessarily approached with that level of nuance.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The reality is, is that as Americans, we are having many different conversations at the same time and making no distinction in our language.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And I think that's one of the reasons why the Biden-proposed regulatory change is difficult for a lot of people to grasp, because it does do that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It tries very hard to grapple with the different questions and how they apply to different levels of sport and what could be allowed at the high school and collegiate competitive level versus what should not be allowed at second-grade soccer level.
--:-- Katie Barnes: But the current legislation as it stands does not make that distinction.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In fact, it goes out of its way to not make that distinction.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And what happens if you just blanket ban trans kids from participating at these insignificant levels?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They don't play sports.
--:-- Katie Barnes: It's that simple.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As Americans, we love elite and professional sports.
--:-- Katie Barnes: It's part of the fabric of the American dream that someone can grow up playing basketball on their park court, get discovered, and make it big in the NBA.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We love those stories.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And so there's a part of the youth sports apparatus that drives that desire to get scholarships, to go pro, to be an Olympian.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But the reality is very few of us will ever make it that far, right?
--:-- Katie Barnes: But also, sports are skills.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You have to be good at the sport to become an Olympian.
--:-- Katie Barnes: One does not become an Olympian simply because they were assigned male at birth.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so these restrictions, when enacted at a really low level, including elementary school, middle school, what that does just removes the ability for that athlete to have an affirming experience in just normal sports.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Which, again, is the experience for the overwhelming majority of the population.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I don't mean like 65%, 75%.
--:-- Katie Barnes: I mean 96% of those who play up to high school sports do not go on to continue to compete in college.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So by enacting these restrictions in such a broad way, it really is limiting the sporting opportunity for really young kids and to have a typical sports experience that the overwhelming majority of the American public would have access to.
--:-- Katie Barnes: So do you think this new rule proposal from the Biden administration that attempts to find some nuance in this debate will last?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think it depends on how it is discussed and how it's communicated.
--:-- Katie Barnes: And also, you know, whether or not the Biden administration gets sued.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, like the last time an administration tried to articulate a policy for transgender inclusion in schools broadly, which happened under the Obama administration, 23 states sued that administration over it.
--:-- Katie Barnes: So how this plays out, I think, really remains to be seen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I will say I think the regulations are certainly more nuanced than has been discussed in general.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Katie Barnes, ESPN.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They're the author of a forthcoming book called Fair Play, How Sports Shape the Gender Debates.
--:-- Katie Barnes: It's coming out in September.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our program today was produced by Hadi Mawajdeh.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Edited by Matt Collette.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Fact-checked by Avishay Artsy and Laura Bullard.
--:-- Katie Barnes: Engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey and Michael Raphael.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And hosted by me, Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Katie Barnes: This is Today Explained.
