Hunter College
“A More Fair Playing Field: Trans Rights in School and Sports" Panel
Panelists Lex Horwitz, Bobby Hodgson, and Erin Mayo-Adam (Moderator)
Event Description
Legislation targeting transgender athletes has been on the rise from the federal to local level. Since 2020, 23 states have passed restrictions on transgender athletes’ ability to participate in school sports. Advocates argue that the crusade to push transgender athletes from sports constitutes a culture war with the ultimate goal of excluding transgender people from public life. They also point to how restrictions on transgender students’ ability to participate in sports often harms non-transgender students by subjecting them to invasive surveillance of their bodies. In New York, the debate recently came to a head in Nassau County, which passed a county law banning transgender girls and women from participating in women’s sporting events in county-run parks and events.
This event will feature speakers Lex Horwitz and Bobby Hodgson in a conversation about the nuances of fairness in sports regarding transgender athletes, and the non-discrimination protections in New York State. The event will include a discussion of Proposition 1, also known as the Equal Rights Amendment, which passed by a wide margin in New York in the 2024 general election and added non-discrimination protections based on gender identity and expression into the state constitution.
Panelist/Speaker Bios:
Bobby Hodgson (he/him), is the Assistant Legal Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and its Director of LGBTQ Rights Litigation. He first joined the NYCLU in 2013 as a Skadden Fellow, and since then he has worked extensively on advocacy related to LGBTQ rights in New York. Among other matters, he appeared as counsel as part of the ACLU and NYCLU team representing Donald Zarda in Zarda v. Altitude Express, which was decided by the Supreme Court alongside Bostock v. Clayton County and established the applicability of Title VII to sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. Other ongoing work includes litigation focused on police misconduct, transparency, and immigrants’ rights. Prior to working at the NYCLU, Bobby was a law clerk to Judge David O. Carter of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Lex Horwitz (he/they), is a passionate queer, non-binary transgender Jewish LGBTQIA+ Educator, Consultant, and Public Speaker. Lex works with educational institutions, nonprofits, medical centers, and businesses creating and presenting LGBTQIA+ curriculum and workshops, developing inclusive policy, producing educational resources, and providing feedback and action steps to address areas of growth. Through their keynote, Lex shares their journey as the first out transgender athlete at their college and in their sport, and what it was like for them to navigate the binary sports world as a non-binary person — including their experience in switching teams. In providing powerful judgment-free safe spaces where all can engage in critical conversations on gender, sexuality, and community, Lex supports people in becoming effective allies in action to the LGBTQIA+ community. Some of Lex’s clients include The Philadelphia School District, The American College of Physicians, The Human Rights Campaign, The New England Small College Athletic Conference, and The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, Lex is a researcher, consultant and writer in Gender Affirming Health Care at Temple University and Temple Health in Philadelphia, he leads support groups for trans youth at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and coaches Middle and High School Varsity and Junior Varsity Squash and Softball at The William Penn Charter School.
Erin Mayo-Adam (she/her), moderator, is the Director of the LGBTQ Policy Center at Roosevelt House, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Hunter, and a member of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Faculty and Curriculum Committee. She is the author of Queer Alliances: How Power Shapes Political Movement Formation and has published in numerous academic outlets, including the Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of LGBT Politics and Policy. She specializes in American politics, law and society, and political theory and bridges scholarship on social movements, interest groups and public policy, intersectionality, gender and sexuality, and migration and labor politics.
More information here.
This event is closed to the public.
