Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s transgender ban debated in Glen Cove

It made a place that I had always felt really safe to be in have a crack in it.”

Phoebe George, senior, Glen Cove High School

Rebecca Goldaper remembers standing in front of her mirror in 2021, wearing a short green skirt with yellow flowers that she had bought on Amazon. In that moment, she took her first step to becoming true to herself, confirming that the male gender she had been assigned at birth didn’t match her outward appearance.

“Now that I had this realization, the alternative felt wrong,” Goldaper said of dressing as a man. “It became harder for me to dress the way that I used to and be perceived the way that I used to. What I had been presenting as me for 29 years no longer felt like me, because I had seen that there was another way.”

The now 32-year-old English teacher at Glen Cove High School acknowledged fearing people’s reactions when she began introducing herself as a trans woman and living openly as her authentic self. It took her a couple of months, she said, to do so, because of her fear of how others might perceive or treat her.

But her comfort with living in a socially progressive state is facing a major setback — an order by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, signed on Feb. 22, banning transgender athletes from competing in girls’ or women’s sports at county facilities. While those born male will not be allowed to participate on female teams, Blakeman’s order does not require county facilities to ban females from playing on male teams.

“This is not precluding anybody from participating in sports,” Blakeman wrote in his order. “What it is, is identifying that there are women and girls who spent a tremendous amount of time and effort to excel and compete in their sports that are women’s sports — whether it’s WNBA, whether it’s college, whether it’s high school, whether it’s just a community league — and it is an unfair advantage for someone who’s a biological male to compete against a biological female.”

Blakeman wrote that an individual’s gender is defined as the individual’s biological sex at birth.
New York Attorney General Letitia James demanded that Blakeman rescind the ban, stating that it was a “discriminatory and transphobic executive order” in a news release on Friday.

James described the order as a “clear violation” of state civil and human rights law that would subject all female athletes to “intrusive and invasive questioning.”

Glen Cove Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck, a former high school teacher, voiced concerns about the participation of transgender athletes in sports, and particularly the potential impact on opportunities for young women athletes to secure scholarships. She emphasized the physical advantages that some transgender women might have over biological women, citing the stature and strength of her husband, who played high school basketball, as an example. Despite her concerns, however, Panzenbeck said she did not believe it was necessary to propose a ban on transgender athletes at city-owned facilities.

“People need to understand what the issue really is,” she said. “No matter what you do to your body, no matter what surgery, you’re still physiologically a male, and you have an advantage. This isn’t about banning them. They can play on a coed team; they just can’t play on a solid women’s team.”

Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said in a statement that Blakeman’s executive order would do nothing to help youth who live and play in Nassau County, or keep them safe.

“Transgender youth want the opportunity to play sports for the same reason all youth do: to be a part of a team where they belong,” Ellis’s statement read. “Excluding girls from playing sports with their friends, simply because they are transgender, sends a dangerous message to young people: that it is okay to exclude people simply because you do not understand them.”

City Councilwoman Marsha Silverman said that as a girl, she was excluded from a softball team because of her gender. Her experience, she said, taught her to stand up for what she believes in.

“Elected officials have an opportunity to bring unity among diverse groups and act as role models and leaders,” Silverman wrote in an email. “(The executive order) is simply a misplaced overly broad political ploy. It is meant to enrage and scare people rather than educate, and I find this very sad.”

Phoebe George, a gender-non-conforming senior at Glen Cove High, said they were re-evaluating the comfort they once felt as a county resident.

“I felt very helpless,” George said of their reaction when they heard about the ban. “It made a place that I had always felt really safe to be in have a crack in it. People close to me are now being affected by this atrocious decision.”