A ban on transgender women playing on women’s sports teams at county-owned sports facilities has turned a Long Island county into the latest battleground for conservatives who have put cultural issues at the center of a nationwide political strategy.
Restricting the rights of transgender people has become the focus of those efforts, and the ban in densely populated Nassau County has infuriated L.G.B.T.Q. activists and Democratic officials, who have challenged it in court.
But it is unclear whether the ban, which was introduced last month through an executive order signed by the Republican county executive, Bruce Blakeman, will provoke broader anger in a place where Republicans have gained ground in recent years. Or, by contrast, if it might motivate conservative and moderate voters in a place where Democrats hold a fragile majority.
It is also unclear whom it might affect, if anyone. The executive order applies to more than 100 facilities in Nassau County, including playing fields in parks; baseball, football, and soccer fields; basketball and tennis courts; ice skating rinks; and indoor and outdoor swimming pools, according to the state attorney general’s office.
The county ban does not apply to facilities owned and run by the area’s public school districts, though it could affect students whose teams practice or play at county facilities.
The ban could also pose a problem for youth or adult recreation leagues with transgender players. Last week, one such group that uses county facilities, the Long Island Roller Rebels, an adult roller derby league, sued Nassau County, arguing that the ban violates state civil rights law.
When asked if there currently were or had ever been any transgender women or girls who competed at sports facilities run by the county’s parks department, Mr. Blakeman said he believed the answer to be no. But he wanted to make sure there never would be, he said.
“You don’t have to get punched in the nose in politics to take action,” Mr. Blakeman told reporters on Monday.
Nassau County is next to New York City, the seat of Democratic power. But, like Republicans elsewhere, Mr. Blakeman has found culture war issues to be a winning campaign topic — often casting them in terms of parents’ rights. In 2021, he used opposition to pandemic-era mask mandates to revive his political career and defeat a centrist for his current job.
On Monday, his effort drew the endorsement of Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympian and longtime Republican who is today best known as a reality television star. She appeared onstage beside Mr. Blakeman to declare her love for the L.G.B.T.Q. community and her support for the ban, which she said would protect women and girls and defeat “the woke agenda.”
“If the left wants to fight this battle on this hill, it’s a losing battle,” said Ms. Jenner, a transgender woman. “We will win the battle.”
Ms. Jenner’s appearance in Nassau County seemed designed to telegraph to voters that one might support the gay and transgender community while still opposing certain rights for some of its members.
“For obvious reasons, Caitlyn’s the star of the show; she’s an Olympic hero,” Mr. Blakeman told reporters, with a broad grin. “And I’ll tell my legal team to take everything Caitlyn said and put it in the brief.”
Democratic leaders have pushed back strongly on Mr. Blakeman’s order, which requires any sports organization that wants to use a county parks department facility to “expressly designate” its teams as male, female or coed based on the birth sex of its members.
After the order was signed, Gov. Kathy Hochul accused Mr. Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.” The state attorney general, Letitia James, called the move “transphobic and deeply dangerous.”
The order has been challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit last week on behalf of the roller derby league, and by Ms. James, who issued a cease-and-desist order earlier this month seeking to stop it from being enforced. In response, Mr. Blakeman filed his own lawsuit and said he wants a federal judge to rule that his order is legal.
It is unclear how urgent the issue is to voters in New York.
There is no local polling data on the issue available in Nassau County. National polls suggest that while the number of Americans who know a transgender person is rising, so too is the number of Americans who oppose their inclusion in sports teams that align with their gender identity.
According to a Gallup poll last year, large majorities of independent (67 percent) and Republican (93 percent) voters say they oppose allowing transgender athletes to play on teams that align with their gender identity. The number of Democrats who support their right to do so fell from 55 percent in 2021 to 47 percent in 2023.
Interviews with Long Island residents show a similarly complicated range of opinion.
Claire Kelty, 38, a physical therapist who works in Mineola, said she and a transgender friend had talked about the issue and agreed there were differences in physical strength between those who were assigned male or female at birth.
“It could very well be an unfair advantage,” Ms. Kelty said. She said she understood why Ms. Jenner would support Mr. Blakeman’s executive order.
“That makes sense, for her of all people,” Ms. Kelty said. “I respect Caitlyn Jenner.”
But Marissa Blanko, 21, a nursing student in Mineola, did not. She said Ms. Jenner was a hypocrite for opposing the rights of transgender athletes.
“Why would she be, like, ‘Oh, no, I’m against it’?” Ms. Blanko said. “Look at yourself.”
Others, though, said Ms. Jenner’s athletic career in men’s sports — a gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, a star turn on the front of a Wheaties box — was exactly the point.
“If it was the other way around, I’d take her in her prime to compete against females — she’ll just dominate,” said Ronnie Stephen, 36. “I’m all about change, but it’s all about fairness.”
The L.G.B.T.Q. movement has long relied on the idea that knowing a gay or transgender person would make a straight or cisgender person more likely to support L.G.B.T.Q. rights.
But it is not clear if that assumption holds true on the issue of transgender sports: In the last two years, support for transgender athletes has actually fallen slightly more among those who know a transgender person than among those who do not.
According to the Gallup poll, 40 percent of those who knew a transgender person in 2021 said that person should be allowed to play on the sports team of their choice, but that figure fell by 10 points to just 30 percent by 2023. Among those who do not know a transgender person, support for transgender athletes fell 8 points in the same time frame, to 23 percent.
With a critical election looming in November, Democratic and Republican candidates have both said they plan to campaign vigorously in Nassau County.
But it is unclear if Mr. Blakeman’s new signature issue will motivate voters to turn out. “This shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” he said on Monday. “This is a common sense issue.”
Some residents said they never thought about the issue at all. One resident, Maria Williams, 21, a nursing student in Jericho, said transgender athletes were none of her concern.
“I really don’t think about this stuff,” she said. “I just don’t care.”
