New Senate Bill Threatens the Mental Health of Transgender Athletes

The Texas Senate passed a bill Sept. 22 barring transgender students from athletics causing critics to warn that children already experiencing bullying could become more isolated and some might even turn to suicide.

Supporters of the bill believe it is necessary to prevent “biological males” from competing in women’s sports, but opponents said it is just another way of targeting transgender youth, solving problems that don’t exist.

Eli McNeely, a transgender athlete who identifies as male, told senators that he is traumatized by his experiences in high school.

“Imagine the harassment I have had to have walking into the girl’s locker room,” McNeely said. “I have almost committed suicide because of the bullying that I have had in sports.”

Attempting its fourth pass at the bill this year, Texas leads the nation in anti-transgender legislation. University Interscholastic League policy currently states that schools handle the collection and verification of birth certificates, and they must allow the use of amended birth certificates for eligibility.

This bill would allow no such amendments.

Bill author, Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, said the bill is meant to protect young women from having to compete against individuals who were born male.

“The trauma that our trans community may be feeling is just as real to a female athlete… that potentially had scholarship opportunities or just a life-long dedication to running"  taken away by transgender athletes, Perry said.

Although some proponents of the bill said they are empathetic towards the plight of transgender youth, many believe that mental health cannot be held above equity in sports by allowing transgender athletes to compete with girls.

“There's numerous other treatments. And we have to offer those treatments to people who are experiencing depression and anxiety,” Jonathan Covey, director of Policy at Texas Values, said. “But destroying fairness in sports is not the answer.”

He did not elaborate on what other treatments should be pursued. 

Cassandra Hulsey, president of the Texas Association of School Psychologists said the bill removes opportunities for inclusion in schools.

“This exclusion from sports denies [transgender athletes] another opportunity for inclusion with their peers in those activities and routines that other students enjoy and benefit from participating in when they're in school,” Hulsey said.

According to the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ crisis intervention and research organization, even the discussion of these bills negatively affects the mental state of transgender youth. Some experts worry that higher media attention to these issues conveys the message of exclusion even more clearly.

This hostility only causes more harm to the children being discussed, said Stephen Russell, director of Human Ecology at the University of Texas.

“The media attention points out to many children that there are people who don't want them on the sports team and don't want them in their gymnasium,” Russell said. “And that has a ripple effect for kids’ psychological well-being.”

Supporters of the bill ultimately say they follow the science on biological gender, but science shows that biological gender is not so easily defined. Experts estimate that up to 1.7% of the population - the same number of people with red hair - don’t fit perfectly into the male or female categories.

Russell explained that this makes the bill, and its emotional turmoil, unnecessary since there are vast biological differences within “biological peer groups.”

“There are, of course, Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Marilyn Monroes,” Russell said. “There are people who are archetypes of masculinity and femininity and all the rest of us are somewhere in between.”

The bill is currently waiting to be heard by the House Public Education Committee, whose chairman Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, has historically blocked the bill.

Meanwhile, families of transgender students continue to voice their concerns at the Capitol.

“It just establishes our state is a place where that's going to be a primary value where you have to fit into one kind of masculinity or one kind of femininity, or you don't fit in and you can't play,” Russell said. “It's undermining for everybody.”