Cuomo’s petty trans-rights authoritarian play

SUNY athletes competing for a national championship are set to be victimized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s hard line on transgender rights . . . in another state.

In 2016, recall, Cuomo issued an executive order banning all non-essential state-sponsored travel to North Carolina over that state’s bathroom law.

That law was partly rescinded, but Cuomo’s ban remains in effect — and it covers the 13 athletes from three SUNY schools who qualified for this month’s NCAA national swimming championships in Greensboro.

So, says Cuomo’s office, they can’t stay in a North Carolina hotel. Instead, they must go to Virginia and commute more than an hour each way to the competition.

When alumni of SUNY-Geneseo (which has 10 swimmers on the team) heard that, they started a GoFundMe page and raised $7,000 to cover hotel costs.

Team Cuomo’s response: They can’t stay in North Carolina even with private funding. Indeed, the gov made a “limited exception” to the ban to let them compete at all.

That’s right: Cuomo is forcing college swimmers to compete with the disadvantage of a lengthy commute — and pretending to be generous in letting them go at all.

If this weren’t so authoritarian, it’d be merely ridiculous. Either way, it’s cruel.

As Mark Nasky, whose daughter Nancy captains the Geneseo swim team, said: “The governor has never had a son or daughter that qualified to be an all-American, and so he has no idea how hard it is to get there.”

Or just doesn’t care. His flack insists it’s all about not supporting “blatant discrimination, bigotry and bias.” Nonsense: Cuomo has had no problem visiting Cuba, which doesn’t even recognize same-sex marriage.

Unlike the governor, let’s all support New York’s student athletes, and wish them all the best of luck.

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