Parents
If you have trans or nonbinary athletes on your team who are impacted by this USOPCs decision, ask them how they want to be supported and take the time to listen. You can also ask your gym to support trans climbers by asking them to include trans, intersex, and nonbinary climbers in their local competition rules, and by asking them to reach out to USOPC to state their opposition to requiring USA Climbing to comply with Executive Order 14201, banning trans women from competing.
Send a letter to your gym:
To [gym manager],
My child loves climbing at [gym name] and being a part of the team. However, I was disappointed and disheartened to hear the news of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committees recent decision to require USA Climbing to comply with compliance with Executive Order 14201, banning trans women from competing in climbing competitions.
This executive order is based in partisan politics and ignores studies that have shown repeatedly that trans women do not hold inherit advantages in athletic competition. Furthermore, your compliance with EO14201 requires USA Climbing to violate Chapter 2205, Subchapter II, Section 220522, part 15 of the Ted Stevens Act which states that, “An amateur sports organization, a high-performance management organization, or a paralympic sports organization is eligible to be certified, or to continue to be certified, as a national governing body only if it … does not have eligibility criteria related to amateur status or to participation in the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games, the Pan-American Games, or the Parapan American Games that are more restrictive than those of the appropriate international sports federation.
Because the international federation of Sport Climbing allows for trans women to compete, by removing trans women from competitions in our sport you are forcing USA Climbing to break federal law.
If possible, can our organization send a letter to USOPC to demand their reconsideration of this?
Thank you so much.
Sincerely,
[your name]
For more information you can read about these policies and their impact at www.transclimbersbelong.org.
Sincerely,
[your name]
