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On Monday, March 18, the former Olympian, who came out as a trans woman in 2015, held a press conference alongside Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in support of his polarizing transgender athlete ban.
The executive order, which went into effect on Thursday, Feb. 22, prohibits the Nassau County Parks & Recreation Department from issuing permits to female teams that include transgender women, therefore banning them from playing games at the over 100 county-run facilities. It does not apply to men’s or co-ed sports.
“We are at a crossroads,” Jenner said.
Though stating that, as a transgender person herself, she has “empathy for all LGBT people,” she lamented that the inclusion of “biological males” in women’s sports takes “valuable opportunities” away from cisgender women and that it causes physical harm.
She further accused New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a cease-and-desist against the order, of using the ban for her own political furtherance, saying, “Don’t let this AG use you, fool you, into using LGBT people for political gain.” (Blakeman issued his own lawsuit against James’ cease-and-desist just days after it was announced.)
Jenner’s remarks echo those of Blakeman himself, a Republican who has likened allowing transgender women to play women’s sports to “bullying,” saying that “it’s a situation of fairness…it is an unfair advantage for someone who is a biological male to compete against a biological female."
He has previously said he does not know how many transgender athletes there are in Nassau County, but that between half a percent and one percent of all residents in the county identify as transgender.
Related Story: Long Island Roller Derby Team, NYCLU Sue Nassau County Executive Over Trans Athlete Ban
New York LGBT Network President Dr. David Kilmnick said that Jenner’s support of the ban was “not only hypocritical but also harmful.”
“It is disheartening to witness someone who has experienced the challenges of being marginalized actively contribute to the oppression of others within the same community. Such actions only serve to amplify the voices of intolerance and detract from the collective efforts towards a more inclusive society."
Since the passage of the executive order, Blakeman has received much criticism from activists and fellow politicians.
The Long Island Roller Rebels, a women’s roller derby league that welcomes trans women, partnered with the New York Civil Liberties Union to sue Nassau County on Monday, March 11, citing that the order violates New York’s Human Rights Law and Civil Rights Law, both of which explicitly prohibit gender identity-based discrimination.
Jenner, age 74, won the men’s decathlon event at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. She was considered one of the most famous transgender women in the world at the time she came out.
Though a transgender rights activist, many of Jenner’s views on transgender issues have been criticized by other LGBTQ activists.
She ran as a Republican in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, where she began to speak out against the inclusion of transgender people in sports.
Caitlyn Jenner was born as Bruce Jenner in Northern Westchester County in 1949 in the village of Mount Kisco.
She attended Sleepy Hollow High School in Sleepy Hollow, New York her first two years before moving to Connecticut, where she attended Newtown High School her junior and senior years.
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