Sen. Elizabeth Warren — Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren has branded a proposed ban on transgender student athletes in Arizona “cruel.”
Warren responded on Twitter to Republican state Rep. Nancy Barto’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which last week was approved by an Arizona House committee and will be voted on over the coming weeks.
The bill, which applies to K-12 schools, community colleges, and state universities, would allow only those assigned female at birth to compete on female athletic teams.
If a person’s gender identity were called into question, that athlete would be required to obtain a doctor’s note proving they are female before being allowed to compete.
The bill would also allow cisgender female students who believe they’ve missed out on athletic opportunities because of transgender inclusion on a school team to file lawsuits seeking redress.
“Trans athletes are not a threat,” Warren tweeted. “We need to protect trans kids — and all LGBTQ+ kids — and ensure they feel safe and welcomed at school. I urge the Arizona legislature to reject this cruel bill.”
Trans athletes are not a threat. We need to protect trans kids—and all LGBTQ+ kids—and ensure they feel safe and welcomed at school. I urge the Arizona legislature to reject this cruel bill. https://t.co/9ALVjeIBiv
Barto previously defended her bill by saying, “Science is what it is. The difference between males and females is obvious.”
Opponents of the bill, including Arizona Democrats, argue that the measure will effectively ban transgender females from participating in sports altogether, as they may not want to compete against cisgender males, and could be putting themselves at risk of abuse or harassment by teammates if they were to compete on male sports teams.
Republicans in Georgia, Tennessee, and Washington state are pushing such bans for the 2020 legislative session.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told the Arizona Republic that there is “a reason these bills are popping up simultaneously.”
“There have been no problems with this issue in Arizona. This isn’t responding to an issue that students are having in Arizona. This is a national campaign to use this issue — sadly — to just polarize and divide people,” Minter said.
For Warren, it’s the latest example of support for the transgender community. Last week, she used nonbinary-inclusive terms in a tweet discussing a potential vice presidential pick, and the Massachusetts senator includes her preferred pronouns in her Twitter bio.
I want to tell you exactly the kind of vice president I want: Someone who will be in this fight alongside me for your families. Someone who feels this fight passionately—and who brings his, her, or their own energy to get it done. #CNNTownHall
Warren has also repeatedly highlighted the epidemic of violence against transgender women — particularly trans women of color — in the United States, including reading out the names of women who have been killed and raising the issue of anti-trans violence during Democratic debates.
During a debate in December, Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders were asked what they would do to “stop violence against transgender people.”
While Sanders pivoted to discussing Medicare for All, Warren pledged to “go to the Rose Garden once every year to read the names of transgender women, of people of color, who have been killed in the past year.”
“I will make sure that we read their names so that as a nation we are forced to address the particular vulnerability on homelessness,” Warren said. “I will change the rules now that put people in prison based on their birth sex identification rather than their current identification.”
She added: “I will do everything I can to make sure that we are an America that leaves no one behind.”
Like other candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, Warren has also committed to reverse Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people serving openly in the U.S. military, branding the ban “shameful” in a tweet last year.
A transgender asylum seeker from Mexico, identified in court filings as O.J.M., has been released after spending 43 days in immigration detention. She was arrested in early June, just after attending an asylum hearing at the Portland Immigration Court, and was held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington.
O.J.M. is one of many asylum seekers arrested and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration -- a policy critics argue subverts due process. In one related case, a gay makeup artist seeking asylum was deported and imprisoned in a maximum-security facility in El Salvador after being wrongly accused of gang affiliation. He has since been released.
A new Williams Institute report shows LGBTQ adults are more likely to rely on food assistance -- and could be disproportionately harmed by Republican-led efforts to slash SNAP funding.
A new report from the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ-focused think tank at UCLA School of Law, finds that 15% of LGBTQ adults -- nearly 2.1 million people -- received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in the past year.
The report arrives as Congress prepares to pass legislation backed by President Donald Trump that would make his 2017 tax cuts permanent. In exchange -- particularly for high-income earners and corporations -- the Republican-backed bill proposes significant cuts to domestic social safety net programs.
The Family Research Council is blasting Ulta Beauty for selling hair products from nonbinary reality star and hairstylist Jonathan Van Ness, best known for Netflix's Queer Eye, and for posting an Instagram video showing Van Ness in a multi-colored dress and white heels, "jumping and shrieking" with excitement as store employees unveil a display featuring a large poster of him.
The famously anti-LGBTQ group claims Van Ness' behavior mocks women and "what he perceives to be female behavior." It also notes that Ulta previously hosted a now-deleted podcast episode featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which it cites as further evidence the company promotes a caricatured view of femininity.
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