Participants in the Portland Pride Parade on Congress Street on June 15, 2024. (Photo by Jim Neuger/ Maine Morning Star)
From a young age, Lex Horwitz knew he did not identify as a girl, but it wasn’t until he went to Bowdoin College that he fully understood his queer and transgender identity. One important and affirming step for Horwitz, now 28, was playing squash on the Bowdoin men’s team. Horwitz said his trans identity was not supported by all his teammates on the women’s team, so after ensuring he met the criteria of New England Small College Athletic Conference, he went from being captain of the women’s varsity team to playing on the men’s team in his senior year of college, in 2018.
“It was the best decision I’ve ever made in my entire life,” he said. “Being able to switch teams, it completely saved my love of myself and my sport to be able to play on the team that affirmed my identity and I don’t know where I’d be today, or who I’d be, without having that experience.”
Horwitz is now a consultant and LGBTQ+ educator in Philadelphia, and coaches middle and high school sports.
“If I was not supported in switching teams, I most likely would have stopped playing squash,” he said, although being a collegiate athlete had always been his dream.
Although being a college athlete had always been his dream, he said if he was not able to switch teams, he would have “given it all up to protect and save my mental health and to protect my identity, even if I meant losing my sport, which is not a decision that any person should ever have to make: to choose yourself or your sport. We deserve to have both.”
Though trans students have participated in Maine sports for years, the issue has been thrust into the national spotlight after a now-viral Facebook post by a Maine legislator. Now caught in the crosshairs of the politicized debate over trans rights is an already-marginalized group of young people whose privacy and well-being are at stake.
“Truly what we’re seeing with trans athletes is a greater fear and hatred of trans people under the guise — or the mask of — sports,” Horwitz said, arguing that the debate is about much more than athletics. “It’s trans people’s place in society, in our culture, which, of course, sports are a part of.”
Last month, Republican Rep. Laurel Libby posted the name and photo of a transgender high school athlete, prompting President Donald Trump to threaten Maine Gov. Janet Mills over trans girls’ participation in high school sports. In the weeks that followed, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services determined that Maine is in violation of Title IX, a civil rights law meant to protect people against sex-based discrimination, while Republican legislators pursued legislation that would bar trans girls from athletics, bathrooms and locker rooms at the state level.
Libby’s post was condemned by more than 140 people who testified during a public hearing last week on a related bill sponsored by Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-Freeport) that would ban adults from publishing private information about children online. Avery Alsop, a trans student and athlete at the University of Maine, told lawmakers, “the never-ending calls to criminalize us … are a daily burden for us.”
“If anyone wants to discredit our bodies, spread misinformation about what we are, and frame us to push regressive ideologies, I will happily be there to oppose you,” Alsop wrote. “But leave children out of this.”
Trans athletes — who make up a tiny fraction of the overall high school athletes nationwide — have been the target of scrutiny over the past few years as the politicization of trans identities ramped up. Since 2020, thousands of anti-LGBTQ+ state laws have been introduced across the country, with a majority of states imposing some kind of restriction on trans and nonbinary students. Some of those laws ban books about trans people; others restrict students and teachers from using affirming pronouns; and dozens include bans on trans athletes.
Reviews of these laws show that bans on athletic participation in particular almost always spill over into prohibiting other kinds of access for trans students, which has severe consequences on their mental health and has shown to be linked to higher rates of suicide, depression and anxiety, according to longstanding research.
Republican lawmakers in Maine and beyond have framed trans participation in sports as an issue of safety, fairness, and women’s rights. But transgender people and advocates say a handful of athletes in the U.S. has not historically caused safety or fairness concerns in sports.
But it does impact the privacy, safety and mental health of a marginalized group of young people who already face discrimination, which is why they argue it is important for Maine to preserve trans students’ rights in the face of political pressure.
“It’s only because it’s become a political hot potato in the last couple years that people are spending a lot more time focusing on it and inventing all these things around unfair advantage, people getting hurt or whatever, which are not true,” Gia Drew, executive director of EqualityMaine, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
“Trans people are not the problem or the reason why we have economic insecurity or housing prices are high. Trans people are just trying to live their lives.”
Before gender was added as a protected class under the Maine Human Rights Act in 2021, the Maine Principals Association had a policy requiring trans athletes to petition for a hearing to ensure that those participating in sports consistent with their gender identity would be fair and safe. Between 2013 and 2021, there were 56 such hearings, including four trans girls, according to public testimony the association submitted in 2023. All 56 cases were deemed safe by the MPA.
“There was never a complaint, because there is no reason to complain. It wasn’t till in the last few years that the opposition have decided that this is some type of political thing to use to divide and conquer communities. Most of their arguments are not rooted in the experience of real kids, real transgender people and their classmates, or the science behind it all.
– Gia Drew, executive director of Equality Maine
“There was never a complaint, because there is no reason to complain,” Drew said. “It wasn’t till in the last few years that the opposition have decided that this is some type of political thing to use to divide and conquer communities. Most of their arguments are not rooted in the experience of real kids, real transgender people and their classmates, or the science behind it all.”
Federal investigation
An investigation by the Office for Civil Rights under HHS that was announced on Feb. 21 and concluded four days later found that Maine had violated Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination.
It included no interviews, data requests or negotiations but the agency notified the Maine Attorney General’s office via emailed letter that the state’s policy allowing trans girls to participate in girls’ sports was in violation of federal law.
With two other federal probes into Maine still pending, it is unclear what the exact consequences of the violation will be, but the state will have to either fight the decision in court, or comply by banning trans girls from playing in sports. Mills told Trump she would see him “in court,” but later told reporters that the policy was “worthy of debate.”
Republican legislators have introduced at least two bills — LD 868 and LD 233 — attempting to restrict what teams trans athletes can participate on. These bills, like so many of their counterparts across the country, don’t stop at athletics as they also restrict access to bathrooms and locker rooms for trans girls.
During a press conference last week, Libby, Rep. Elizabeth Caruso of Caratunk, who sponsored LD 868, and Assistant House Minority Leader Katrina Smith of Palermo touted the proposals as a women’s rights issue, arguing they are essential to protect girls from losing to or being harmed by trans girls.
“Girls are pitted against competitors in lopsided matches where basic biology stacks the odds against them, guaranteeing defeat and exposing them to real dangers, broken bones and smashed noses, all due to obvious differences in physical strength,” Smith said.
Perception vs. research
This argument that trans girls have “basic biological differences” that give them advantages over cisgender girls in both high school and professional athletics has been used by both Republicans and Democrats as a reason to keep trans girls out of girls sports.
A Gallup poll from 2023 found a growing number of Americans (69%) believe trans athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender, compared with 62% in 2021. California Gov. Gavin Newsom also recently said allowing trans girls on girls teams was “deeply unfair.”
Horwitz, the former Bowdoin athlete, said the idea that being trans makes an athlete “inherently a threat to sports” comes from people “not seeing trans girls and trans women as women.”
Sue Campbell, the executive director of LGBTQ+ youth advocacy group Out Maine, and others argue that the decisions concerning high school athletics and trans teenagers should not be a political issue.
“Politicians aren’t medical providers. They aren’t people who are involved heavily in athletics, and yet, here they are trying to make these decisions that then everybody has to live by,” Campbell said.
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While scientific research is not conclusive about the inherent strength, speed and power of transgender girls compared to cisgender girls, a 2024 study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine comparing athletes, funded by the International Olympic Committee, showed that trans athletes who are taking hormones may actually be at a disadvantage.
Another comprehensive review commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport in 2022 backed these findings, showing that there are too many variables that lead to athletic prowess to be able to say that trans girls are stronger and have inherent advantages over cis girls or women.
“I think there’s always going to be all sorts of biological advantages, regardless if you’re trans or not. How you were born, how you were raised, how much healthy food you had, how much training and coaching your parents were able to afford — all those things give different people different advantages,” said Drew from Equality Maine, who was one of the nation’s first trans high school coaches. “Being trans is not an inherent advantage in anything.”
Parents and students who support Caruso’s bill told Maine Morning Star that they did not view their position as opposing trans girls, who they said could participate on coed teams and use gender neutral restrooms.
The bill is “not an attempt to attack them or be hateful toward them, it’s just an attempt toward fairness,” said Fairfield resident Zoe Hutchins, who attends Lawrence High School and plays on a team that recently competed against the athlete Libby posted about.
“I want them to be able to compete, especially because competition, it’s been a huge part of my whole life, and it’s just it gives you so much community and joy, and that’s not something that I want to take away from anybody,” Hutchins said. “But competition has to be found through other avenues … .”
Part of a broader national attack
These bills are part of a nationally coordinated attack on trans rights. Since 2020, at least 27 states have laws restricting trans athletes from participating in school sports, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks anti-LGBTQ+ legislation nationwide. Other laws include restrictions banning trans students from bathrooms and locker rooms aligning with their gender identities.
Maine was found guilty of violating Title IX. What does that mean, and what happens next?
“Sports is not the only place that they wish to suppress — or rather in which they wish to bless the exclusion of — transgender students,” said Brian Dittmeier, director of public policy from GLSEN, a national LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “Athletics is just one facet of the broader attack on transgender students, which in itself, is one facet of a broader attack on inclusive learning in the first place.”
After Trump took office, national protections for trans and nonbinary people were stripped away almost immediately. Title IX was rolled back to a previous version, without explicit protections for gender identity. Through executive orders banning gender affirming care, directing investigations by federal agencies into several states with trans-supportive policies, and most recently, in his joint address to Congress, Trump highlighted his anti-trans efforts.
“The erasure of transgender people in the eyes of the federal government is real, and it’s terrifying to communities across the country, including here in Maine,” Drew said. “They’re doing their best to try to remove transgender people from public life, from being students playing sports, from going to public school, from existing.”
The impact on young people
Such policies contribute to higher rates of suicidal thoughts reported by LGBTQ+ young people, according to The Trevor Project, whose national surveys have found trans and nonbinary students at elevated risks due to the politicization of their identities.
“Lawmakers must understand the very real impacts of anti LGBTQ+ laws, whether these laws are related to sports or schools or health care or anything else. Anti-LGBTQ+ laws and the harmful rhetoric surrounding them very seriously take a toll on LGBTQ+ young people’s mental health,” said Ronitha Nath, vice president of research at The Trevor Project. “Much of what is being discussed by politicians is, you know, unfortunately, based on stereotypes and misinformation about what it means to be transgender.”
This misinformation can lead to unwanted scrutiny by adults on all high school athletes, which has broad impacts, reaching cis students as well, Dittmeier from GLSEN said. Last year, a cisgender athlete in Utah was wrongfully identified as trans by a school board member on social media, sparking a slew of negative comments toward the teenage athlete, much like Libby’s post.
Some proposals have called for invasive testing or procedures. A Texas bill would subject all students who are participating in school athletics to chromosomal testing.
This adult scrutiny of high school students, Dittmeier said, is “a huge invasion of privacy.”
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