School sports bans targeting transgender girls can expose many more children to sex-based scrutiny, according to Megan Gandy, an associate professor of social work at West Virginia University who studies LGBTQ+ belonging and organizational climate.
Gandy argues that recent Supreme Court rulings in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., which she says bar transgender girls from playing on teams that match their gender identity, do more than exclude transgender students from youth sports. In her view, they also normalize a system in which adults may challenge a child’s sex based on appearance, athletic success or conformity to expectations about femininity.
That is the part many policymakers prefer to talk around. A rule meant to police one group of children has to be enforced against bodies in the real world, including cisgender girls whose height, strength, speed or presentation triggers suspicion.
Sports are developmental spaces, not just scoreboards
Gandy points to research finding that youth sports can help children build confidence, social skills, physical fitness and a sense of belonging. Studies she cites also link supportive sports environments with goal-setting, problem-solving, positive thinking and protection against stress and depression.
Those benefits depend on the environment around the child, she writes. Youth sports can also become damaging when adults or peers create humiliation, pressure or body shame. Criticism of weight by coaches and parents, or destructive peer pressure from teammates, can turn a supposedly healthy setting into another place where children learn to distrust their bodies.
Gandy defines bodily surveillance, citing academic research, as treating the body as something to be judged from the outside, including through assumptions about physical traits or gender presentation. She says sex-verification policies in girls’ and women’s sports operate through that logic, even when framed as fairness rules.
Suspicion can spread beyond transgender students
The practical enforcement questions are ugly and not hypothetical. Gandy writes that disputes over eligibility can lead to hormone testing, genetic testing, genital or pelvic inspections, or transvaginal ultrasounds. She notes that such tests may reveal biological variations that cisgender children and their parents did not know about.
She also cites recent cases involving cisgender girls. In Utah in 2022, a high school athlete was secretly investigated after winning a competition, after parents of other competitors questioned her sex. According to the account Gandy cites, the state high school athletics association reviewed records going back to kindergarten without first consulting her parents.
In 2023, two adults confronted a 9-year-old girl at an elementary school track meet, claiming she was transgender and demanding proof of her sex, according to ABC News. The child was also a cisgender girl.
Gandy, a former NCAA Division II women’s volleyball player, says she experienced repeated scrutiny because of her own body and gender presentation. She writes that the experience harmed her self-esteem and made her want to avoid public attention.
Inclusive school climates show broader effects
Gandy also cites research suggesting that LGBTQ+-inclusive environments benefit students more broadly. A 2012 study of nearly 16,000 students in 45 schools found that gay-straight alliances were associated with lower truancy, smoking, drinking and suicide attempts. A 2020 study of more than 895,000 children found that students in LGBTQ+-inclusive environments reported better school performance, lower substance use and better mental health.
By contrast, she cites a 2024 study finding that anti-LGBTQ+ language in youth sports harmed self-esteem among children, including those who did not identify as LGBTQ+.
Gandy’s conclusion is blunt: sex-based surveillance cannot be confined neatly to transgender students. Once adults are invited to challenge whether a child’s body belongs in a sport, every girl who is too fast, too strong or insufficiently feminine by someone else’s standard can become a target.
This story draws on original reporting from Techdirt.
