The human right to safe drinking water was made into international law by the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council in 2010. The human right to sanitation was added as a distinct right by the UN General Assembly in 2015 [1]. Nevertheless, one in four people across the globe do not have access to safe drinking water. According to the World Health Organization, as of 2021, over 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries. This number is expected to increase due to climate change and population growth. Over 1 million people die each year from unsafe water—deaths which are mostly contained in the poorest regions on Earth [2]. As of 2022, 94% of drinking water facilities in high-income countries were labeled “safely managed.” In low-income countries, particularly across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, this number is only 29% [3]. The 2021 Global Burden of Disease study found that of the top 10 risk factors for disease, unsafe drinking water was ranked 7th for children under the age of 5. Lead exposure in bone was ranked 10th for adults over the age of 70 [4].

This is not simply a “foreign” problem (although as global citizens, I would argue we should be more concerned about our overseas brethren). According to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency, there are more than 40,000 public water systems in the United States that are in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act [5]. A 2017 report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s drinking-water infrastructure a rating of D and assessed that the U.S. needs to invest $1 trillion in the next 25 years for upgrades [6]. A 2020 TIME article by Justin Worland interviewed people from Lowndes County, AL; Denmark, S.C; Inez, Ky; and the Navajo Nation, all of whom were impacted by unsafe drinking water. The message of his article is clear; impoverished and minority communities are impacted most, because they are easy for politicians and policymakers to ignore—until this systemic challenge manifests in catastrophe [7].

When we think of the water crisis (and lead exposure) in the United States, many remember Flint, Michigan, which became a source of national outrage in 2014. The city began supplying residents with highly corrosive, untreated water from the Flint River, which resulted in lead leaching out from aging pipes into thousands of homes. Nearly 9,000 children drank lead-contaminated water for 18 months. To this day, Flint has failed to meet court-ordered deadlines to check and replace lead service lines in eligible homes—work that was scheduled to be completed as of April 2024 [8]. However, since April 2018, bottled water is no longer provided free of charge to residents by the city government.

Let’s talk about bottled water for a moment. Of course, there are environmental and health risks from drinking bottled water; in 2021, only 6% of plastic was recycled,[9] and recent studies have found microplastics in 93% of bottled water [10]. However, in areas where there is no infrastructure to provide easy to access to potable water, bottled water is essential to survival. In 2023, Americans spent $44.6 billion on bottled water [11]. That’s money that went straight into the pockets of major corporations—who are draining a natural resource for profit! One example that gained media attention in recent years is Nestlé (now Blue Triton). In 2018, Nestlé sold $5.4 billion worth of bottled water in the United States. To access and pump groundwater from sites in various states, their application and permit fees cost as little as $115 for one-time use or $2,100 per year. In 2017, Nestlé pumped more than 130 million gallons of water a year (about 4.8 million bottles of water a day) from wells in northwestern Michigan. They paid $200 a year in fees. For every thousand gallons drawn from city-owned wells, they paid $3.50 [12].

We must protect water as a precious natural resource, especially as climate change worsens. The government must take action to limit corporate water consumption and impose hefty fines on corporations that violate the Clean Water Act. After all, BP paid the $60 billion in fines after spewing 3 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 [13]. This record-breaking amount ushered in an era of multibillion dollar corporate fines, but it is still worth asking: should a company that did irreparable environmental damage in the careless pursuit of profit be allowed to continue to exist? Today, BP is still worth $96.4 billion [14]. It is the role of governments, but nationally and internationally, to ensure that the billions of dollars going to corporate profit margins instead go to delivering global sustainable water management—a goal that the World Resources Institute estimated could be achieved for the cost of US$1.04 trillion annually from 2015 to 2030 [15].

[1] “Human Rights to Water and Sanitation: UN-Water.” UN, www.unwater.org/water-facts/human-rights-water-and-sanitation. Accessed 30 July 2024.

[2] “Drinking Water Fact Sheet.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 13 Sept. 2023, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water.

[3] Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner and Max Roser (2019) – “Clean Water” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘ https://ourworldindata.org/clean-water’ [Online Resource]

[4] Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Global Burden of Disease 2021: Findings from the GBD 2021 Study. Seattle, WA: IHME, 2024.

[5] EPA. “Public Water Sites with Any Violations.” Environmental Protection Agency, 2023, Accessed 31 July 2024.

[6, 7] Worland, Justin. “Why so Many Americans Don’t Have Access to Clean Water.” Time, Time, 20 Feb. 2020, time.com/longform/clean-water-access-united-states/.

[8] Denchak, Melissa. “Flint Water Crisis: Everything You Need to Know.” Be a Force for the Future, 16 Apr. 2024, www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-you-need-know.

[9] “Top 25 Recycling Facts and Statistics for 2022.” World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/recycling-global-statistics-facts-plastic-paper/. Accessed 31 July 2024.

[10] Pied, Tatum. “Bottled Water: The Human Health Consequences of Drinking from Plastic.” Clean Water Action, 26 July 2024, cleanwater.org/2020/07/29/bottled-water-human-health-consequences-drinking-plastic.

[11] “U.S. Bottled Water Market Size, Share: Industry Report, 2030.” U.S. Bottled Water Market Size, Share | Industry Report, 2030, www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-bottled-water-market-report. Accessed 31 July 2024.

[12] Ngo, Hope. “Nestle’s Water Controversy, Explained.” Mashed, Mashed, 27 Dec. 2021, www.mashed.com/717227/nestles-water-controversy-explained/.

[13] Uhlmann, David and Jeffrey F. Liss. “BP Paid a Steep Price for the Gulf Oil Spill but for the US a Decade Later, It’s Business as Usual.” The Conversation, 8 May 2024, theconversation.com/bp-paid-a-steep-price-for-the-gulf-oil-spill-but-for-the-us-a-decade-later-its-business-as-usual-136905.

[14] “BP Net Worth 2010-2024: BP.” Macrotrends, www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BP/bp/net-worth. Accessed 31 July 2024.

[15] Strong, C., S. Kuzma, S. Vionnet, and P. Reig. 2020. “Achieving Abundance: Understanding the Cost of a Sustainable Water Future.” Working Paper. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Available online at www.wri.org/ publication/achieving-abundance.

Trans People Belong in Sports

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We trans guys are pretty non-existent in the debate about trans people playing sports, mainly because misogynistic and transphobic thinking insists that trans men would never be physically capable of besting a cis man. But, in my experience as a trans man playing rugby with cis men, I’ve found myself more than capable of tackling and taking down my opponents — regardless of body size and strength. My experience illustrates an important point: bodies are diverse, regardless of sex assigned at birth. There are cis women who are bigger and stronger than cis men, even though it is certainly the norm for cis men to be bigger and stronger than cis women.

Most importantly, as Bobby Riggs found out when he faced off against Billie Jean King, just being a man does not mean that you are guaranteed to defeat a woman in sports. This is an alarming concept for the patriarchy. The 1992 Barcelona Olympics is a great example of the lengths the patriarchy will go to in order to protect the male ego. Zhang Shan, a Chinese shotgun shooter, won the gold medal in the mixed-sex skeet shooting event. At the following Olympics, women were not allowed to compete in skeet shooting [1].

Human beings are obsessed with categories because categorization is a survival skill. We love people to fit neatly into boxes, and we use labels to put them there. These labels are extremely useful – they help us to better understand ourselves and our relationships with others. However, labels become problematic when they cause us to ignore the nuances of individual experience. The arguments against trans women in sports rely on labelling trans women as universally superior to cis women (with the implied transphobic reasoning being that this is because trans women are men). Not only is this an untrue statement, but it also leads to cis women who are talented athletes being scrutinized and challenged about their bodies — an experience that is even more prevalent among women of color.

The Algerian boxer Imane Khelif experienced this scrutiny on the global stage when she was accused of being a transgender woman after winning her matches “too easily” in the 2024 Paris Olympics [2]. In 2018, World Athletics lowered the testosterone threshold to 5 nanomoles per liter of blood for races between 400 meters to 1 mile. As a result, two 18-year old Namibian sprinters, Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi, both cisgender women, were barred from competing in the 400 meter event [3]. Even children are negatively impacted by transphobia in sports! A total of 28 states now ban trans students from playing in sports consistent with their gender identity [4]. In February of 2024, Natalie Cline, a member of the Utah State Board of Education, publicly shared a photo of a local girl playing for her high school basketball team, insinuating she was transgender due to her larger build and short haircut. Cline was rebuked by state legislation, but the 16-year old still faced online threats and harassment. Cline later claimed her actions were the result of “the push to normalize transgenderism in our society” [5].

The policing and scrutiny of bodies in sports is so terrifying because it takes very little for the media to manipulate people’s fear of the unknown – in this case, “transgenderism”. The controversy around Lia Thomas is a perfect example of how the coverage of a single trans person led to uninformed outrage that pressured sports institutions to hastily change long-standing inclusive policies.

Thomas is a transgender swimmer who competed on the men’s team at the University of Pennsylvania before beginning her medical transition in May of 2019. As per NCAA regulations at the time, she spent a year on HRT before competing on the women’s team in the 2021-2022 collegiate season. During that time, she became a prominent figure in the debate about trans women in sports, with Sports Illustrated calling her “the most controversial athlete in America” [6]. Critics accused Thomas of having an unfair advantage over “biological women”, pointing out that her rankings in the women’s division were higher than her rankings in the men’s division. This article (Lia Thomas: Trans swimmer didn’t have unfair advantage, data shows | The Independent) by The Independent  does an excellent job of breaking down in-depth why the claims of unfairness are unjustified. To summarize, the article explains that Thomas was a highly competitive swimmer in longer-distance races when she competed in the men’s division, and that it is entirely possible her performance could have reached NCAA men’s division championship levels if she did not go on HRT. Additionally, her times in the women’s division events she competed in were not record-breaking; in the 500-yard freestyle race that she won, her time makes her the 15th fastest college swimmer — a total of 9 seconds behind Katie Ledecky’s 2017 record [7].

This is clearly a complex debate with many nuances; however, media often sensationalizes stories in order to attract attention from its audience, often at the cost of that nuance. In the 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships, Thomas won the 500-yard freestyle and became the first transgender athlete to claim a national title in swimming. She also tied Riley Gaines for 5th place in the 200-yard freestyle. Gaines told The Daily Wire, “It was a bit disheartening…It really was. I left the pool with no trophy. Not a big deal, but it was the goal that I had set all year” [8]. Given this dramatic comment, it is important to be clear: Gaines would not have even placed in the top three in the event, regardless of whether or not Thomas had competed. Not only that, but Gaines did leave with a trophy. She was handed the 6th place trophy to hold on the podium and mailed a 5th place trophy. By positioning herself as a victim, Gaines was able to leverage media attention to become a prominent voice campaigning against transgender women competing in sports, describing herself on her website as a “leader defending women’s single-sex spaces, advocating for equality and fairness, and standing up for women’s safety, privacy, and equal opportunities” [9]. In In 2023, she was among four women who testified at a House Oversight subcommittee hearing about changes to Title IX proposed by the Department of Education [10]. She led demonstrators outside the NCAA convention in January of 2023, saying, “Today, we intend to personally tell the NCAA to stop discriminating against female athletes by handing them a petition that we have garnered nearly 10,000 signatures on in just a couple of days” [11]. Currently, Gaines is among several athletes and former athletes to bring a lawsuit against the NCAA, alleging that the NCAA’s policies governing sports eligibility for trans student-athletes discriminate against cisgender women. Gaines’s case demands that the NCAA categorically ban all transgender women and girls from competing in sports [12].

As I pointed out at the beginning of my essay, bodies are diverse. Should Michael Phelps be banned from swimming because of his unique body structure and lower-than-average lactic acid production? Katie Ledecky is 6’0″ — should she be banned from competitions because her height is too “manly”? Policing bodies is a dangerous path: one that, as I pointed out earlier, harms all people. It is true that studies done on transgender vs. cisgender women show some advantages in strength during the first 3 years of HRT [13]. One military study of transgender men and women in the United States Air Force found that prior to gender affirming hormones, trans women performed 31% more push-ups and 15% more sit-ups in 1 min and ran 1.5 miles 21% faster than their cisgender counterparts. After 2 years of taking feminizing hormones, the push-up and sit-up differences disappeared, but trans women were still 12% faster [14]. Another study of nonathletic trans women and cis women found that while absolute lean mass remains higher in trans women, relative percentage lean mass and fat mass (and muscle strength corrected for lean mass), hemoglobin, and VO2 peak corrected for weight was no different to cisgender women [15]. In fact, a recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found notable disadvantages faced by transgender women athletes, including less lower body strength, being unable to jump as high, a lower maximum rate of oxygen consumption, and higher overall levels of body fat. The authors concluded that the results should “caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions” [16].

Disappointingly, sporting institutions have not proceeded with caution. In 2022, as the attention around Thomas’s swimming career was peaking, the NCAA changed its trans-inclusive policy, which had existed since 2010 and required athletes to have been on HRT for at least 1 year and to lower their testosterone levels. Now, the NCAA takes a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes [17].  Following Thomas’s championship victory, the world swimming governing body adopted a new “gender inclusion policy” that effectively bans transgender women from competing. Despite the term “inclusion”, the policy only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women’s events. Notably, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recommends 14 as the minimum age for starting gender transition hormone treatment [18]. In January 2024, Thomas took a case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland to try to fight the ban [19]. Unfortunately, she lost the case in June of 2024, meaning she was unable to compete in the Paris Olympics [20]. In February of this year, Donald Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, stating “the war on women’s sports is over” [21]. In March, he froze $125 million of funding to UPenn, Lia Thomas’s alma mater, citing policies that allowed trans women to compete in women’s sports [22].

Transphobia is rooted in fear of the unknown. It is natural for there to be debate and scientific inquiry about gender and athletics. However, when individuals turn to the media and use sensationalizing and dehumanizing language to magnify that fear, the results are inevitably harmful. Riley Gaines did just that when she made comments about Lia Thomas’s genitalia and claimed some of the swimmers felt “violated” and “undressed in the janitor’s closet” to avoid having to share a dressing room with her [23], [24].  So did three of Thomas’s former UPenn teammates, Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holquist, who claimed that Penn and other universities within the NCAA “have knowingly stolen opportunities and awards from women, placed women in physical danger, and facilitated the sexual harassment of female student athletes” [25].

Trans women are women. A trans woman changing in a bathroom is not sexual harassment — bodies are bodies, and simply existing in your body is not harming anyone. Everyone deserves the right to feel comfortable in spaces, and if someone else’s body or appearance makes you uncomfortable, you always have the right to leave that space. The only women who have had opportunities stolen from them are the trans women and girls affected by the slew of transphobic bans imposed on athletics. Trans people belong in sports. Nobody is going through the difficulties of socially and medically transitioning simply to dominate women in sports. Every athlete knows the joy of feeling included on a team, and as a trans athlete I am deeply grateful that I can live as my true self and experience the euphoria of competing with other men. I hope to one day live in a world where all people feel included and welcomed in sports, and I hope that society learns to embrace the diversity of bodies as an asset to be celebrated rather than a danger to be policed.

[1] https://www.olympics.com/en/athletes/shan-zhang

[2]  <https://19thnews.org/2024/08/cisgender-women-of-color-anti-trans-violence/>

[3] https://www.11alive.com/article/news/verify/olympics-namibia-runners-disqualified-testosterone/536-64b05c61-7be2-4ca0-9768-d6250df17c19>

[4] https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/youth/sports_participation_bans

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/utah-official-faces-calls-resign-falsely-suggesting-teen-girl-transgen-rcna137903>

[6] Lia Thomas interview: The story of the Penn swimmer at the heart of the transgender athlete debate – Sports Illustrated

[7] Lia Thomas: Trans swimmer didn’t have unfair advantage, data shows | The Independent

[8] https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/riley-gaines-i-left-there-with-no-trophy-after-tie-with-lia-thomas-kentucky-standout-disappointed-with-ncaa/  

[9]  https://www.rileygaines.com/>

[10] The Importance of Protecting Female Athletics and Title IX – United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability

[11] Demonstrators protest NCAA’s transgender athlete inclusion | AP News

[12] https://www.aclu.org/cases/gaines-v-ncaa

[13] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8311086/

[14] https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

[15] https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/109/2/e455/7223439

[16] https://www.them.us/story/trans-women-disadvantages-athletic-competition-study

[17] NCAA adopts new policy for transgender athletes | AP News

[18] https://apnews.com/article/transgender-swimmers-new-rules-fina-world-governing-body-c17e99d3121fa964336458b57ae266f7>

[19] https://www.bbc.com/sport/swimming/68104658

[20] Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas loses CAS case to overturn World Aquatics ban | Reuters

[21] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/05/nx-s1-5282137/trump-transgender-sports-executive-order

[22] https://www.newsweek.com/which-universities-have-faced-funding-dilemma-under-trump-2061186

[23] Lia Thomas so ‘well-endowed’ I had to ‘refrain from looking’: Riley Gaines

[24] Riley Gaines says some ‘violated’ swimmers ‘undressed in the janitor’s closet’ to avoid Lia Thomas 

[25] https://www.foxnews.com/sports/lia-thomas-former-teammates-react-upenn-federal-funding-pause-amid-trumps-vow-enforce-title-ix>

Safe, stable, affordable housing was first recognized as a universal human right in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although the US signed this declaration, there are still no federal laws that guarantee access to housing (unlike countries such as France, Spain, Sweden, and Belgium, whose constitutions expressly create a right to housing).

As of 2022 in the U.S, there were an estimated 650,000 unhoused people and a projected housing shortfall of up to 7 million housing units. Only one in four eligible households receive federal housing assistance.  

Under capitalism, housing is a commodity — one that corporations have increasingly begun to dominate as a means of exploiting the working class. A 2022 study by Drexel University of three major cities (Philadelphia, PA; Jacksonville, FL; and Richmond, VA) found that in the last 30 years, the proportion of rental properties owned by individuals (not LLCs) dropped from 77% to 41%. Investor purchases of single-family homes also increased, with more than 1 in 5 homes sold going from homeowners to investors in neighborhoods that were redlined under the Federal Housing Act of 1934.

Why is this a problem?

 Corporations that own rental properties are not required to disclose beneficial owners. Because they are shielded from liability, corporate owners are incentivized to put profit over people and may not maintain their properties. In addition, corporations have the liquid capital to purchase properties and can easily absorb the cost of holding vacant and dilapidated properties for long periods of time. This is how redlining and gentrification work. 

In redlined areas, prospective buyers and current owners struggle to access mortgage financing, face low sale prices and high vacancy, and have higher shares of residents who are Black or Hispanic. Eventually, investors renovate and resell or rent these properties at prices that are unaffordable for the area’s original residents, leading to the increase in property value in the surrounding area and the displacement of individuals who are unable to afford the rising prices (gentrification). 

Meanwhile, for the average family, homeownership is increasingly out of reach. The average cost of a home has risen from $18,000 in 1963 to $420,800 in 2024, whereas the median income for families in 1963 was $6,200 and as of 2024 the median income for families is $74,580. This number is lower for Hispanic ($62,800) and Black ($52,860) families. In percentage terms, in 1963 a family’s yearly salary was 34% of the cost of the home. Today, a family’s yearly salary is only 18% of the cost of the home. In the 1960s, rent was an average of $71 per month (meaning 14% of your monthly paycheck went to rent). Today, rent is an average of $1827 per month (meaning 29% of your monthly paycheck goes to rent).

So what can be done?

Imagine what the world would look like if the government devoted its $825 billion defense budget to creating low-cost housing units and offered subsidies and/or rent control for low-income groups. If the U.S. constitution contained an amendment demanding access to safe, sanitary housing for all. If homelessness was not treated as an individual problem, but a systemic one. Because in a country where 66% of people live paycheck to paycheck, homelessness is an ever-present danger for many.

Although Congress denied the $300 billion “Housing as A Human Right Act” in 2020 and 2021, local legislation is still powerful. One notable example is California Senate Bill 567, i.e., the Homelessness Prevention Act, which went into effect on April 1, 2024. The bill caps rent hikes at 10% and prevents landlords from evicting tenants without legal cause. Another example is California Assembly Bill 12, i.e., the new residential security deposit law, which went into effect on July 1, 2024 and limits the amount landlords can charge for security deposits.

Other steps that could be taken by the federal government include increasing protections for and expanding section 8 housing, introducing legislation requiring the disclosure of beneficial owners for LLCs and tracking high priced real estate transactions, and creating protections for tenants focused on just cause evictions and right to counsel for eviction. The government should also increase the tax rate on vacant properties, so that it is no longer profitable for corporations to hoard territory in a deliberate effort to dilapidate and then gentrify urban areas.

Sources:

Canopy Forum. “‘The Elusive Quest for a Legal Right to Housing in the U.S.’ by Terri Y. Montague.” Canopy Forum, 21 May 2024, canopyforum.org/2024/05/09/the-elusive-quest-for-a-legal-right-to-housing-in-the-u-s/.

Dogmetchi, Laya. “California’s Housing Overhaul Brings Significant Changes for Landlords and Tenants in 2024.” Legal News & Business Law News, National Law Review, 13 Mar. 2024, natlawreview.com/article/californias-housing-overhaul-brings-significant-changes-landlords-and-tenants-2024.

Fallon, Katherine, and Amalie Zinn. “Naming Housing as a Human Right Is a First Step to Solving the Housing Crisis.” Housing Matters, 4 Feb. 2022, housingmatters.urban.org/articles/naming-housing-human-right-first-step-solving-housing-crisis.

“Income and Wealth in the United States: An Overview of the Latest Data.” Peter G. Peterson Foundation, www.pgpf.org/blog/2024/05/income-and-wealth-in-the-united-states-an-overview-of-recent-data. Accessed 28 July 2024.

“Investor Home Purchases and the Rising Threat to Owners and Renters: Tales from 3 Cities.” Nowak Metro Finance Lab, drexel.edu/nowak-lab/publications/reports/investor-home-purchases/. Accessed 28 July 2024.

“Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States.” FRED, 24 July 2024, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS.

“Redlining.” Federal Reserve History, www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/redlining. Accessed 28 July 2024.