The fight for trans athletes isn't about fairness. It's about who gets to belong

A young Rose Montoya was put in T-ball and basketball because of the gender she was assigned at birth. Her teammates were boys who spent more time bullying her than passing her the ball. Her real friends were the girls who let her play dress up. Most days, the boys made it clear she didn't belong with them. So she got pushed into solo sports instead, and she missed out on the things sports are supposed to teach kids: teamwork, confidence, belonging.

That's what's actually at stake in this fight. Not trophies. Belonging.

This was never really about sports. Sports are the distraction, the easiest fight for the far right to win, because it's a story people already think they understand: everyone remembers gym class, a rivalry, a close finish, so it feels simple even when it isn't. The real goal is far larger: deciding who gets to take part fully in American public life. A tiny number of kids just trying to play are up against a coordinated, well-funded campaign to make them the outcast.

Lindsay Hecox is one of the people that the movement ran through. In 2020, before she ever got the chance to compete in college, Idaho passed HB 500, the first outright ban on transgender athletes in school sports in the country. Lindsay was 19. She sued with the ACLU just for the right to try out. Five years and constant public attacks later, she tried to withdraw her own case. But after refusing to drop the case, on June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against her and a West Virginia plaintiff in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, permitting states to ban trans athletes without mandating it. The fight isn't over; it now moves to state legislatures, school boards, and Congress.

It's important to note that for 22 years, the Olympic Charter made room for transgender athletes, even as eligibility standards shifted and tightened. In that entire span, exactly one openly transgender woman ever competed at the Games: Laurel Hubbard, Tokyo 2020. She did not medal. That era ended in March 2026, when the IOC barred transgender women from female-category events entirely, effective at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. If there were ever a crisis serious enough to justify that reversal, two decades of Olympic competition never produced the evidence for it.

Meanwhile, before the NCAA changed its policy in February 2025, its own president told Congress he knew of fewer than 10 transgender athletes among the 500,000-plus college athletes in this country. This was never a flood. It was never even a trickle.

Furthermore, if this were really about protecting cisgender women's sports, its backers would be closing the pay gap between men's and women's leagues and investing in women's athletics the way they invest in men's, not gutting Title IX protections for every student in the process. Women's sports have never had an equal playing field, and blaming trans girls for that doesn't fix it.

Instead, enforcement gets ugly fast, and the suspicion doesn’t stay inside the gym. Cisgender people get swept up in that scrutiny too: a Florida volleyball player was investigated by police after an anonymous tip, prompting a 500-page report on her medical history and body; a Utah basketball player faced threats after a state school board member falsely suggested she was transgender; an Arizona boy was barred from his team over a clerical error on his birth certificate. This is what "protecting women's sports" looks like in practice: surveillance, not protection.

This follows the same pattern used for decades against LGBTQ+ rights: pick a group with limited political power, tell a story that makes them look threatening, and use the fear to justify laws that push them out of public life. This was never about fairness or protecting women. It’s about who gets to decide who’s allowed to exist in public life, and trans people are simply the current test case, small and vulnerable enough to try it on first.

Lindsay wanted to run with her team. A younger Rose just wanted to be on a team where she belonged. Stories are what change minds, so share Lindsay’s and Rose’s with the people in your life who are still on the fence. The LGBTQ+ community has done this before: during the AIDS crisis, people who weren’t sick still showed up for those who were, and that solidarity became the foundation for the rights we’ve won since. That same fervor is what our trans and nonbinary family needs now.

In 2028, the world comes to Los Angeles for the Olympic Games. For the first time in over two decades, transgender women won't be permitted to compete in the female category, a decision made months before a single qualifying heat was run. Under the new Olympic policy, every athlete entering a women's event will take a genetic test to prove she belongs there. Surveillance is no longer a side effect of these rules. It is the mechanism. That's exactly why visibility matters now. Spaces like Pride House LA/West Hollywood, built to expand visibility and remove barriers for LGBTQ+ athletes and fans, are laying groundwork one policy reversal can't undo.

Sports were only the opening move. Together, empowered with the truth, let’s make sure no kid has to wait as long as young Rose and Lindsay did to find out that they belong.

Rose Montoya (she/they) is a trans Latina advocate, educator, and creator with over a decade of experience advancing trans-inclusive policy, shifting public perception, and building community power. Rose serves as the Senior Digital Strategist of Christopher Street Project.

Michael Ferrera (he/him) is the CEO of Out Athlete Fund, a non-profit organization sponsoring elite LGBTQ+ athletes preparing for competition and producing Pride House LA/West Hollywood during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. More information at pridehouselaweho.org.

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