SEAFORD, N. Y. — ( AP ) — They zip around the rink, armed with helmets, pads and mouthguards. As they squat for space on the hardwood floor, they push, nudge, and sometimes slam.
The Long Island Roller Rebels ‘ women’s biggest challenge, however, is occurring outside the suburban strip-maze ball club where they are gearing up for the upcoming wheel derby season.
The roughly 20-year-old amateur group is suing a county leader for an executive order prohibiting transgender-only leagues and teams from using county-run parks and fields. The New York Civil Liberties Union-backed legal action from the league has inserted itself into the conversation about the right of trans sports.
Amanda Urena, the team’s vice president, said there was never any problem the party would take a walk.
” The entire point of derby has been to be this thing where people feel welcome”, said the 32- year- ancient Long Island indigenous, who competes as” Wavy Pan” and identifies as gay, at a new practice at United Skates of America in Seaford. We want transgender women to know that we want you to enjoy with us, and that we will make sure that this is a secure environment for you to enjoy.
More than 100 people services in the state of almost 1.4 million located south of Queens are affected by the ordinance from Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in February.
Sports teams and clubs that want to play or practice in county-run parks may make a disclosure as to whether they permit or not permit trans women or girls. Any organization that allows them to play may be denied a force, though men’s teams and clubs are n’t affected.
As part of an blast of anti-trans legislation on many topics in recent years, bills restricting transgender students ‘ ability to participate in sports have now passed in some 24 state. Following a vote on the school board last year, the largest school district in Manhattan is now one of the neighborhoods considering a ban.
In order to host practices and games on county-owned rinks in the upcoming season, the Roller Insurgents requested a state force this month. Since the business accepts anyone who identify as a lady and has one trans player already on the roster, they say they expect to be denied.
The group, which has two groups and about 25 players, did struggle to recruit as a result of the ban, Urena said, and it will also struggle to sponsor competitions with different leagues.
Blakeman has requested that the state retract the ban, calling it against state anti-discrimination laws, while state attorney general Letitia James has requested that the county rescind it.
It is n’t surprising that a roller derby league has become the target of opposition because, according to Margot Atwell, who played in a women’s league in New York City and wrote” Derby Life,” a book about roller derby, the sport has long been a haven for queer and transgender women.
The game, which dates at least to the 1930s and reached its height in the 1970s, sees two teams compete around a monitor as their designated “jammer” presses on against the other athletes, who are allowed to apply their shoulders, chest, and arms to slow them down.
The most recent renaissance, which started in the early 2000s, was supported by LGBTQ+ people, with leagues usually hosting Pride parades and fundraising events, according to Atwell.
” You come in here and you say,’ I’m a transgender person. I’m a intersex people. I’m genderqueer.’ OK? We accept you”, said Caitlin Carroll, a Roller Rebel who competes as” Catastrophic Danger”. ” The world is scary enough. You ought to be in a secure environment.
Blakeman has stated that he wants to ensure that female athletes can compete carefully and fairly. He and Caitlyn Jenner, who won Olympic platinum in the men’s hostel in 1976 and afterwards underwent a sex change, held a press conference next week. Jenner, a Republican who’s frequently at political odds with the greater transgender community, has endorsed the ban.
Blakeman, a Republican who was elected in 2021, has said constituents asked his office to act. However, many opponents see the ban as political posturing, noting that he has acknowledged that there have n’t been any transgender player complaints on women’s teams.
” This is a solution in search of a problem”, said Emily Santosus, a 48- year old transgender woman on Long Island who hopes to join a women’s softball team. ” We’re not bullies. We’re the ones that get bullied”.
The ones who will suffer most are n’t elite athletes, but children still trying to navigate their gender identities, added Grace McKenzie, a transgender woman who plays for the New York Rugby Club’s women’s team.
The 30-year-old Brooklyn resident said,” Cruel is the only word that I can use to describe it.” ” Kids are using sports at that age to build relationships, make friendships, develop teamwork skills, leadership skills and, frankly, just help shield them from all the hate they face as transgender kids already”.
Each side makes reference to limited research in order to support their position in the larger discussion about trans women in sports. And bans frequently fail to distinguish between girls and women who used puberty blockers as part of their transition, which stunted the development of a male-typical physique, and those who did n’t, as one New York advocate pointed out.
According to Juli Grey- Owens, leader of Gender Equality New York, the order in Nassau County puts some younger trans girls at greater risk by potentially pitting them against boys.
” They are not hitting puberty, so they’re not growing, they’re not getting that body strength, the endurance, the agility, the big feet, the large legs”, Grey- Owens said.
According to Shane Diamond, a transgender man who plays recreational LGBTQ+ ice hockey in New York City, the ban could even result in cisgender female athletes who are strong and muscular being falsely labeled transgender and disqualified, as has happened elsewhere.
Any young woman who does n’t fit the stereotypical definition of femininity and womanhood is at risk of being interrogated or subjected to gender police, according to Diamond.
According to a poll conducted by the Washington Post-University of Maryland in 2022, 55 % of Americans opposed allowing transgender women and girls to compete against other transgender women and girls in high school sports, and 58 % opposed it for college and professional sports.
Men are stronger than women, according to two cisgender female athletes who heard from Jenner, so it will never be fair for transgender athletes to compete.
” There is a chance I would get hurt in those situations”, said Trinity Reed, 21, who plays lacrosse at Nassau County’s Hofstra University.
Mia Babino, 18, plays field hockey at the State University of New York at Cortland and plans to transfer to Nassau County’s Molloy University.
She said,” We’ve worked very hard to get where we are and play at the college level.”
But that attitude goes against everything that athletic competition is about, and it sells women and their potential short, the Roller Rebels ‘ Urena countered.
” If people gave up playing sports because they thought they were going to lose, we would n’t have a sports industry”, they said. ” I enjoy playing against people who are faster and stronger because that’s how I improve.”
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Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
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