Biases Behind Transgender Athlete Bans are Deeply Rooted

This article is reprinted from The Conversation.

George B. Cunningham, University of Florida and Kelsey Garrison, University of Florida

In 2023, 24 states had laws or regulations in place prohibiting transgender students from participating on public school athletic teams consistent with their gender identity. These bans mean that a person whose sex assigned at birth was male but who identifies as a girl or woman cannot play on a girls or women's athletic team at a public school in that state.

The topic has spurred many debates about fairness, the science behind sports performance, civil rights and sports as a human right.

As researchers who study diversity, equity and inclusion in sport, we were interested in understanding what prompted such bans. Though not a surprise, we showed for the first time through an in-depth study set to be published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sport Management that state-level politics and public biases against transgender people are largely to blame.

Our Research

We collected two years of data in 2021 and 2022 on states that passed legislation prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in sports on teams that connect with their own gender identities.

To determine the political leanings of a state's population, we collected data about the share of Republican state senators and the party affiliation of the governor.

Finally, we collected information about the biases people had toward transgender individuals. The data came from responses to the Project Implicit website. People visiting the site can take tests aimed at measuring their biases toward different groups, including transgender people. Administrators then remove identifying information and make the data freely available. For our study, we aggregated the responses to have transgender bias scores for each state.