Arizona officials have found a new loophole that they claim allows them to block two transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports in schools, claiming that the girls have been barred due to a medical condition.
The state’s top GOP legislative leaders claimed in a new court document that the reason the girls cannot compete in boys sports is due to a medical condition called “gender dysphoria.” Based on this rationale, the GOP leaders are claiming that the decision to bar them from girls’ sports is not discriminatory because it is medically related, not related to their sex.
“Their exclusion from girls’ teams is due to a medical condition, not the states’ sex-based separation of sports teams,” the legislators’ attorney Justin Smith wrote in a recent argument, according to Tuscon.com.
Smith went on to argue that it is the medical condition – not simply their gender identity – that is keeping them from participating in boys’ sports. He claims that a medical condition is not a valid reason to allow a male to compete in women’s sports.
“It is not uncommon for biological males to have medical conditions that prevent them from participating on male sports teams,” Smith said. “And those males suffer the same injury of being unable to participate in sports.”
The obvious problem with this argument is that lawmakers do actually not have the authority or expertise to diagnose somebody with gender dysphoria or any other medical condition, for that matter. Such a diagnosis would require an actual doctor if they’re going to claim it as “a medical condition.”
It’s certainly a creative argument, but it’s unlikely to actually hold up.
