Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is standing by his county’s ban on transgender girls and women athletes at county-run facilities. His defense of the order comes even after the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of a women’s roller derby team. NBC New York’s Pei-Sze Cheng reports.
A Long Island roller derby team is the first to challenge a Nassau County executive order that prohibits transgender women from competing in women’s sports at over 100 different county-owned venues.
The lead plaintiff is Curly Fry, the vice president of the Long Island Roller Rebels, a roller derby team based in Nassau County.
“It’s sending a message, 'Yeah, you’re not safe here, you don’t belong here,'” said Fry in an interview with NBC New York. “It makes me scared to be on Long Island that is the reality of it.”
The team began in 2005 and has always welcomed people of all races, genders and orientations but will likely lose all their practice space in Nassau County because of this executive order.
Blakeman’s order requires any sports teams, leagues, programs or organizations seeking a permit from the county’s parks and recreation department to “expressly designate” whether they are male, female or coed based on their members’ “biological sex at birth.”
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The New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit today. Attorney Gabriella Larios says the order is a clear violation of New York State law.
“Here you have an order that only applies to transgender women and girls and it only applies to them because of their gender identity,” said Larios. “That is very clearly prohibited by law.”
The lawsuit says that to comply with the Order, these groups—and the people who participate in and run them—will be forced to make invasive inquiries about people’s gender identity, intrude upon their privacy and bodily autonomy, and “out” people as transgender.
County Executive Bruce Blakeman is standing by his order and vows to fight the NYCLU suit as well as his federal lawsuit against the state attorney general. That was his response to a cease and desist order by Letiticia James to lift the transgender ban.
Blakeman says he was prompted to issue the order because of trans athletes in other states like Lia Thomas who is the first openly transgender athlete to win the NCAA Division I title for the University of Pennsylvania.
“Rather than compete against other biological males or a co-ed league which they can do in Nassau County they choose to bully their way onto girls and women’s teams.”
But Fry says their roller derby team is about belonging, not gaining a competitive advantage.
“I’ve played with trans women, they are the kindest humans on earth,” said Fry. “They just want to play sports.”
