A jury in Minnesota has sent a powerful message about the state of transgender sports inclusion in the eyes of the public. The jury awarded Christina Ginther, a trans football player who was seeking to play in a women’s football league, $20,000 after a team owner in the league rejected her for being transgender.
According to MPRNews, a couple years ago Ginther tried out for the Minnesota Vixen in the Independent Women’s Football League. She claimed that despite being told she performed very well, she was denied a spot on the team. The jury — not a judge or a politician, but a jury — decided she was illegally discriminated against due to her gender identity.
Not surprisingly, some of the claims allegedly levied against Ginther’s participation in the sport were that she had an unfair advantage as a trans woman, or that she posed a safety risk because, of course, men are all safety risks to women. This is the same argument used against countless trans athletes, despite absolutely no evidence that a trans woman has actually been a safety risk to cisgender women in the fighting ring or on the football field.
Eventually Ginther did find a spot on a couple teams in the Women’s Football Alliance.
Check out the Minnesota Star-Tribune, which has a brief chronicling of Ginther’s life in and out of sports as a trans athlete.
You can follow Christina Ginther on Instagram @mschristinadrivesa944.
