Stand up for Trans Women: Call on Duke to Promote Trans Women's Inclusion

We, the trans, queer, and allied peoples of North Carolina as well as Duke University students, alumni, faculty, and staff, call on Duke University’s Center for Sports Law and Policy and their co-directors Paul Haagan and Professor Doriane Coleman, Duke University and Duke Law School to speak out against the harm of anti-trans legislation, stop contributing to the spread of transmisogyny, and cultivate a welcoming environment for trans and non-binary staff and students at Duke University. Below we outline the current state of anti-trans legislation and its negative impact and Doriane Coleman’s connection and contributions to this harmful movement. We end with our demands for Paul Haagen and Doriane Coleman as well as Duke University and Duke Law in the attempt to prevent further harm towards the LGBTQ+ community.

In June 2023, North Carolina became one of the 25 states that bans or restricts transgender girls and women's participation on sports teams that align with their gender identity. 

• The biological essentialism put forth by this legislation dehumanizes trans people and uses trans rights as a political wedge to mobilize right-wing voters. Transmisogyny has become a major talking point in right wing politics and is now even being featured in Republican candidates’ campaign ads. The rise of anti-trans sports legislation has stirred up a national firestorm of anti-trans rhetoric which has led to other anti-trans laws, including bans on gender-affirming care for transgender adults and youth, bans on drag shows, and bans on teachers even being able to mention that gay and trans people exist to their students. 
  
• Discriminatory anti-trans sports policies like HB574 result in real damages to the transgender and LGBTQ+ community, for Duke University and Duke Law School students, the Durham community, and nationally. We know that affirming trans people’s identity significantly reduces negative mental health outcomes and decreases suicidality.  
  
• Coleman’s arguments against trans-inclusion focus on trans children’s anatomy, whether or not they’ve experienced “male puberty”, and frame trans girls as a physical threat to cisgender girls. A timeline of Prof. Coleman’s claims about trans people and their impact can be found here. This has contributed to a negative focus on trans and nonbinary children across the country, even the Washington Post has connected anti-trans sports laws to the rise in hate crimes threatening children’s lives across America. This is the context that led to the attack on Nex Benedict that ultimately led to their death.

We call on Duke University, Duke Law School, and Professor Doriane Coleman, a tenured law professor who has been teaching at Duke since 2007, to take responsibility for the ways Coleman’s work has been weaponized against trans people and to stand against anti-trans legislation in NC and across the US. Regardless of Coleman’s claims about her intentions or personal views on transmisogyny, the impacts cited below have occurred due to Coleman’s work in the Center for Sports Law and Policy:

• Coleman is a founder of the transmisogynist Women’s Sports Policy Working Group and was the leading figure in launching the Center for Sports Law and Policy at Duke Law School within Duke University in 2021. 
  
  
• Coleman has used the Center for Sports Law and Policy to put forth research and policy recommendations, thinly veiled as trans-inclusionary, that hurt trans people, including banning trans girls from competitive sports and subjecting trans girls to humiliating physical examinations searching for signs of poorly defined “male puberty.” She has also actively lobbied legislators for anti-trans laws. 
  
  
• Coleman’s research has been pointed to by North Carolina Republicans as evidence for why trans-people, particularly trans women, should not be able to participate in sports, going so far as referencing her research four times in North Carolina’s 2021 anti-trans sports bill HB358, a precursor to the current bill, HB574. 
  
  
• Coleman has been cited by name in 25 state laws or Title IX policies that would ban trans children from sports.

While proponents of trans-exclusionary legislation cite sex-linked advantages, many female athletes and national groups including the National Women’s Law Center support full participation for trans women in sports.

Trans women are women. We oppose Coleman’s trans-exclusionary stance and assert that trans women's rights are human rights. 

The impacts of Coleman’s platform at Duke extend far beyond the issue of sports exclusion. We are deeply disappointed in Duke University and Duke Law School for advocating for laws that harm and exclude transgender people. We know that funding the authors and distributors of legislation that excludes transgender people from any part of society is dangerous, and especially harms trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse youth and people of color. We know it inevitably leads to the criminalization and marginalization of LGBTQ people. And we will not stand for this in our universities or in our state.

Doriane Coleman must take responsibility for the harm caused to trans people by her research, particularly trans women of color, and publicly speak out against HB574. We strongly urge co-directors of the Duke Center for Sports Law & Policy, Paul Haagen and Doriane Coleman, to:

1. Speak out against North Carolina House Bill HB574, the anti-trans sports bill passed in NC in 2023, 
2. Condemn the 25 anti-trans bills and Title IX policies across the country that cite Doriane Coleman’s work, and 
3. Refuse to contribute to future anti-trans or anti-gay legislation. 

Furthermore, we call on Duke University and Duke Law School to meet the outlined demands of our petition listed below:

1. Make reparations for this harm by creating a comprehensive scholarship and support program for trans women to attend Duke University and Duke Law School.
   
   
2. Strengthen Duke’s existing policy for Trans inclusion in Duke Athletics to be more supportive of trans and non-binary athletes as they experience the negative impacts of North Carolina’s HB574.
   
   
3. Increase hiring of trans women to faculty and staff at Duke University and Duke Law School.
   
   
4. Develop a comprehensive investigative internal committee at Duke University and Duke Law School to evaluate the following:
   

• academic and personal experience of trans and non-binary Duke students, with special attention to the experiences of trans and nonbinary people of color and assigned male at birth trans and nonbinary people
• post-graduation outcomes for trans and non-binary students
• internal Duke hiring process for trans staff, especially trans women
• the presence of transphobic and explicitly gender-critical faculty and staff on campus- including ensuring that no employee of Duke University and Duke Law School is supported or otherwise encouraged to advocate for anti-gay or anti-transgender laws.

Prior to this petition being circulated, we shared our position with Doriane Coleman and attempted to meet with Coleman and Haagen. Coleman’s response was to state her current position, clarifying that she believes that school sports should be inclusive but that competitive sports should not. She indicated that her work had been misrepresented, and directed us to these pieces of writing from 2020, 2021, and 2023. As we expressed to Coleman in our response and still-unanswered meeting request: she must do more to address the harm her work has caused - and continues to cause - to trans women and children. Intention does not excuse her from accountability for the widespread impact of her work.