In the spring of 2020, Idaho became the first state in the United States to ban transgender girls and women from participating in women’s sports. Two years later, fifteen states have enacted similar laws. Trans athletes—particularly trans girls—are now directly in the crosshairs of America’s raging culture wars, as bills targeting trans and gender-expansive young people proliferate across the country. But the reason for this explosion in sports bans isn’t a surge of trans student athletes dominating the playing field, political strategists and LGBTQ advocates say.