Manhattan’s largest school board district approves resolution that could ban transgender athletes from women’s sports

Manhattan’s largest neighborhood school board district approved a resolution that could lead to a ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports – despite sharp community backlash Wednesday night.

Community Education Council District 2, which serves Manhattan from the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side, passed the controversial measure in an 8-3 vote that demands the city’s Department of Education allow a public review of its policy allowing transgender girls to play female sports.

The vote took place at the end of a contentious meeting in midtown Manhattan attended by City Council members, district parents and “Umbrella Academy” actor Elliot Page, who transitioned in 2020 and has been a strong supporter of trans youth.

Speakers at the meeting mostly slammed the resolution.

Jared Danker, a gay man who works for the DOE and a District 2 parent, said the resolution would “marginalize and discriminate against a group of students who need our affirmation and support.”

NYC Council member Erik Bottcher, who spoke on behalf of himself and three state lawmakers, also condemned the resolution.

“We are outraged that you’re considering a resolution targeting transgender girls and sports. It is utterly shocking that such a regressive and harmful resolution is being proposed in the school district in the middle of Manhattan,” he said.

The resolution is mostly symbolic, as it only serves as a request to DOE brass to hold a review of the existing policy that the department already backs.

Some members of the CEC D2 said they want community input on guidelines put in place in 2019 by NYC’s Public School Athletic League that allow trans participation, according to the proposal.

The goal of resolution 248 is to have a review of the DOE’s guidelines and to add parental involvement into decisions. CEC D2 members also want transparency, arguing that they don’t know how the initial decision was made.

CEC member Maud Maron, one of the resolution’s sponsors, dismissed arguments the proposal is transphobic, but claimed it would spark a conversation about who is allowed to play girls’ sports.

“If we have a proper and real conversation, one of the outcomes could be that nothing changes and that we all discover that these guidelines are just perfect as they are,” Maron explained.

“But another one of the possibilities is that we realize that the excluded voices had something really important to offer and they should have been heard from in the beginning.”

While the measure doesn’t explicitly call for a trans ban in girls’ sports, Maron has advocated for such restrictions when she ran for Congress as a Democrat last year.

“At New York City Public Schools, all students have the right to have their gender, gender identity, and gender expression recognized and respected,” the DOE reiterated in a statement issued Wednesday. “In our schools, every student can participate in sports and competitive athletics in accordance with their gender identity, and we prohibit any exclusion of students based on their gender identity or expression.”

CEC councilmember Gavin Healy questioned why guidelines from 2019 are being looked at five years later.

“If you want to force students to prove their biological sex in order to participate in a sport, you are asking an invasive, a deeply intimate question about someone that they should not have to answer,” he said.

“And what is next, the bathroom, health care? It’s putting a target on students’ backs and so I will definitely vote against it, and I’m just ashamed to be up here tonight, and having to debate this with you.”

But CEC D2 president Leonard Silverman was pleased to see the measure voted through, though he admitted the vote didn’t hold much weight.

“Unfortunately my experience has been that organizations including the community education councils, are sometimes created to give the appearance that parents have control over process when the reality is, that we really don’t have any control,” he said, noting earlier that transgender athletes may have a biological advantage and poise risk to a “level playing field.”

As for a ban on transgender athletes, Silverman admits that discussion would come much later.

The lone public speaker in support of resolution 248, parent Linda Quarles, said there is no consensus on the matter nationally or globally.

“This regulation has been in place for five years, I’m sure we’ve learned much about how this is impacting girls’ sports in our schools,” Quarles said.

“It gives us an opportunity to look back and understand that the regulation is meeting its original intent.”

The resolution isn’t the only push in New York to address transgender athletes on women’s sports teams.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman signed an executive order blocking transgender athletes from sports at county-run facilities.