Human Rights Campaign Calls on NCAA to Cancel Events in States with Transgender Athlete Bans

Advocacy groups have noted a disparity between the outcry from transgender rights groups against states with anti-trans laws and tangible repercussions against those states from large corporations.

Five states have passed laws or implemented executive orders this year to limit the ability of transgender youths to play sports or receive certain medical treatment.

Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, attributed the lack of backlash to a lack of awareness about the potential harm that these laws could cause to transgender young people.

"Some people in this country have not come to terms with treating trans people like human beings," David said, according to the Associated Press. "It's now coming to a head."

The NCAA's Board of Governors issued a statement on April 12 expressing strong support for the inclusion of transgender athletes, saying the NCAA will "closely monitor these situations to determine whether NCAA championships can be conducted in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants."

David said the Human Rights Campaign welcomed the statement but wanted "concrete actions." In a letter to the NCAA, David called on the organization to withdraw championship events from states enacting or advancing discriminatory, anti-trans legislation.

"We appreciate the NCAA's past and present leadership, including its most recent statements. But there is more that must be done because the lives of young LGBTQ people are on the line," David wrote in the letter.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

When the North Carolina Legislature passed a bill in March 2016 limiting which public restrooms transgender people could use, there was a swift and powerful backlash. The NBA and NCAA relocated events; some companies scrapped expansion plans. By March 2017, the bill's bathroom provisions were repealed.

So far this year, there's been nothing comparable. Not even lawsuits, although activists predict some of the measures eventually will be challenged in court.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said he's surprised by the lack of backlash but believes it will materialize as more people learn details about the legislation being approved.

"A lot of Americans are still getting to know trans people and they're learning about these issues for the first time," he said. "Over time, they get to know their trans neighbors, they get outraged by these bans, and corporations respond...It's just a matter of time."

One batch of bills seeks to ban transgender girls from competing on girls' sports teams in public schools. Such measures have been enacted in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, and implemented by an executive order from Governor Kristi Noem in South Dakota.

Another batch of bills seeks to ban gender-affirming medical treatments for trans minors—including the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Arkansas legislators approved such a measure over the veto of Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson, and similar measures are pending in Alabama, Tennessee and Texas.

Echoing concerns of major medical associations, Dr. Michele Hutchison—who runs a transgender medicine clinic at Arkansas Children's hospital—said the ban in her state is raising the risk of suicide among some of her patients and forcing some families to wonder if they should move to another state.

More than 400 companies—including Tesla, Pfizer, Delta Air Lines and Amazon—have signed on to support civil rights legislation for LGBTQ people that is moving through Congress, advocates said Tuesday.

And last week, the Human Rights Campaign took out a full-page ad in the New York Times appealing to corporations to denounce the anti-trans bills that have proliferated in Republican-controlled legislatures.

The letter, signed by David, urged corporate leaders "to take action now by publicly denouncing state legislation that discriminates against people, refusing to advance new business in states that are hostile to corporate values and refusing to support sporting events where transgender athletes are banned."

More than 85 companies have signed a statement drafted by the HRC—including Amazon, American Airlines, Apple, AT&T, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Pfizer and Union Pacific. In polite language, the statement implies a threat: "As we make complex decisions about where to invest and grow, these issues can influence our decisions."

Overall, the corporate response remains "insufficient," David said. "But I think we are seeing a turning of the tide as we put more pressure on companies."

One of the companies signing the HRC statement is the technology giant Oracle Corp., which is planning to bring 8,500 jobs and a $1.2 billion investment to Nashville, Tennessee, over the coming decade. Joe Woolley, who heads the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce, has expressed hope that Oracle—which has not threatened to cancel its plans—might use its leverage to prompt reconsideration of Tennessee's anti-transgender legislation.

Woolley also said organizers of at least three conventions are considering pulling those events out of Nashville because of the bills, though he has declined to identify them.

Thus far, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has signaled that any criticism from the business community won't sway him.

"Organizations have opportunities to weigh in on the legislative process, but ultimately, Tennesseans, through their elected representatives, determine the law in our state," said Casey Black, a spokesperson for Lee.

In Texas, a coalition called Texas Competes released a letter April 19 signed by more than 40 businesses and chambers of commerce in the state denouncing a batch of pending bills as "divisive, unnecessary and economically dangerous."

Specifically, the letter denounced "efforts to exclude transgender youth from full participation in their communities."

In Montana, where a transgender sports ban has won initial approval in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, lawmakers added an amendment stipulating that the measure would be nullified if the federal government withheld education funding from the state because of the policy.

The concern stems from an executive order signed by President Joe Biden banning discrimination based on gender. Montana universities receive around $350 million annually in federal funding, of which $250 million goes toward student loans and grants to cover tuition costs—money that university officials said could be at risk if the administration deemed the sports ban to be unacceptable discrimination.

The extent of any emerging backlash to the anti-trans laws will hinge in part on the NCAA, which played a pivotal role in the North Carolina case.

"When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected," the NCAA's April 12 statement said.

David said the Human Rights Campaign welcomed the statement, but wanted an even tougher stance from the NCAA, with explicit warnings that events would not be held in states with anti-trans laws.

"With the NCAA's commitment to safety, how can holding tournaments in these states possibly keep student-athletes safe?" David wrote. "The only way forward to protect the people the NCAA works so hard to serve is by sanctioning the states fueling hate and violence against our community."