A Republican candidate for state senate is launching a campaign to bar biological males who identify as transgender from competing against females in athletics — and other GOP hopefuls are expected to jump on the bandwagon, too.
Gina Arena, a mother of six girls who is running in the 40th District in the lower Hudson Valley, says the proposed “Equal Rights” amendment appearing on the November ballot will allow trans athletes to compete against females.
She is now putting up “Save Girls Sports” lawn signs throughout the district, a nod to her new campaign titled “Save Girls and Women Sports.”
Arena is facing off in a rematch against Democratic incumbent Sen. Peter Harckham in the district that takes in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. She garnered 47% of the vote against Harckham two years ago in a close contest.
“New York state has shamefully become the national leader in discriminating against women and girls in sports, and that’s intolerable,” Arena said in a statement.
“Sixty-six percent of New Yorkers recently surveyed said they want girls sports left alone, but radical progressives, like my opponent State Senator Pete Harkham, think they know better than the rest of us.”
Harckham voted in the Senate to put the proposed amendment, a k a Proposition 1, on the ballot.
The proposal asks voters whether they support or oppose adding language to the constitution that people cannot be denied rights based on their “race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed, religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
A “YES” vote puts these protections against discrimination in the New York state Constitution.
A “NO” vote leaves these protections out of the constitution.
The language protecting abortion rights has drawn most of the attention.
But a Republican strategist said many voters — and even candidates for office — are unaware that the proposed constitutional amendment will enshrine protections for transgender individuals at the expense of females when it comes to competitive sports.
More GOP candidates will pounce on the trans sports ban as an issue, said former Repubilcan Congressman John Faso, an adviser to state GOP Chairman Ed Cox.
“Many Republican candidates will voice their opposition to [the proposal]. The amendment also undermines parents’ rights,” Faso said.
Nassau County recently approved a law to reinstate a ban on transgender athletes from participating in women and girls’ sports at county-owned athletic facilities. But state Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit last month to block the ban, claiming it violates the state’s anti-discrimination statute.
The Coalition to Protect Kids-NY — which opposes the proposed amendment — will hold multi-press conferences at New York City Hall Park, in Binghamton, eastern Elmhurst in Queens and Rochester to “oppose discrimination against girls in sports” on Monday — National Women’s Equality Day.
“This is a bizarre and dishonest interpretation of the New York State Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), but not surprising given Gina Arena’s Moms for Liberty roots. The ERA is just that, guaranteeing equal protections under the law to all New Yorkers. There is nothing in the ERA that would dictate this. Gina’s scapegoating of a small number of transgender kids is hateful and unacceptable,” the Harkham campaign said.
The pro-ERA group New Yorkers for Equal Rights has insisted the referendum does not explicitly enshrine transgender participation in female sports.
“New Yorkers will see through these blatant lies, and we will win in November. No matter how many billboards anti-abortion extremists buy, New Yorkers know the truth: Prop 1 protects our fundamental rights and freedoms — including abortion,” the group has said.
The pro-ballot group previously insisted the amendment would not strip parents of their rights.