Nevada board moves to limit transgender athletes in school sports

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nevada-board-moves-to-limit-transgender-athletes-in-school-sports/ar-AA1CaikS?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=5d11961e2723416bbf24e10ba6f52122&ei=30

Story by ERIC NEUGEBOREN and ROCIO HERNANDEZ (2 April 2025)

Nevada has become the latest state to curtail the participation of transgender athletes in school sports after the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association (NIAA) reversed a 2014 policy that allowed transgender students in high schools to play for teams that align with their gender identity.

In a near-unanimous vote on Tuesday, the group's board — a group including parents, principals and athletic directors that governs athletics at more than 120 high schools in Nevada — passed a new policy that limits students to playing sports that align with the sex listed on their "unaltered original birth certificate." It also scheduled an emergency meeting in May to discuss implementation.

But the new policy could potentially come into conflict with the Nevada Constitution's Equal Rights Amendment, which was passed by voters in 2022, and guarantees equal rights regardless of gender identity.

"The way I read this is it's patently discriminatory on its face," Athar Haseebullah, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said in an interview Tuesday. "Gender identity and expression were specifically included for provisions within the (Equal Rights Amendment) for a reason."

I hope someone stands up and challenges the law.

Question 1: Since 2014, how many transgender athletes have played in school sports?

Question 2: Since 2014, how many people have been injured by these transgender athletes while engaged in these sports?

My guess is that the answer to both questions is very close to zero.

I think that both men and women should be protected in sports and the most obvious way to do that is to either ban boxing or change its current form.  Every punch to the head or jaw causes brain damage and no boxer is so good that death or disability cannot result. 

Many years ago, a doctor recommended bringing back bare-knuckle boxing.  He argued that nowadays, boxers rarely hit each other except on the head or jaw, whereas bare-knuckle boxers liked to save their poor knuckles and tried to achieve knockouts by body punches e.g. to the heart or solar plexus.  I read elsewhere that John L Sullivan's main knockout blow was to the side of the kneck.  Bare-knuckle boxers were also allowed to wrestle and trip each other with their legs. 

Gloves were introduced to protect the knuckles of the boxer, not the head of his opponent and the idea was that bouts would not be so long and boring if boxers were less afraid to hit each other on the head.  The doctor also argued that gloves add to the momentum of boxers' fists and and are more likely to cause brain damage than bare knuckles.