The fourth time could be the charm for Texas’ embattled bill banning trans kids from playing school sports in alignment with their gender identity.
On Friday, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-21st District) claimed that Republicans have the votes to pass Senate Bill 3, which would force transgender students to compete in school sports in alignment with the gender listed on their original birth certificates. He told the Texas Tribune that one co-sponsor of the legislation “has close to 80 coauthors on the bill,” representing more than half of lawmakers seated in the chambers.
“The votes are there on the House floor to probably pass the legislation as it stands now,” Phelan said amid the Texas Legislature’s third special session of the year.
Earlier iterations of SB 3 have stalled in the Texas House on each previous attempt this year. During Texas’ regular legislative session, the anti-trans sports bill — then known as Senate Bill 29 — failed to meet a midnight deadline after Democrats ran down the clock in the final minutes. Successive bills introduced in Texas’ two prior special sessions also failed to clear the House after Democrats fled the state to prevent the passage of a sweeping voter suppression law.
SB 3 is headed to the Texas House yet again after the Senate passed the legislation b a 19-12 vote last week, but supporters hope this time will be different. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a staunch supporter of the effort, made SB 3 one of his key legislative priorities for the fourth session.
But Phelan said there remains a key hurdle to SB 3’s passage: committee debate. If House Democrats are able to vote down the legislation before it’s heard by the entire chambers, the bill could be blocked for the fourth time. The House Speaker claimed that he “does not yet have assurances whether the bill will make it through committee,” as the Texas Tribune reports.
“Like any other piece of legislation, it’ll be incumbent upon the author to make the case throughout the process,” he said, “and we’ll see if it makes it to the House floor.”
An anti-trans sports bill was blocked by House Public Education Committee Chair Harold Dutton (D-142nd District) in the most recent special session, even after he permitted such legislation to advance to the House Floor during the regular session. Dutton initially allowed the bill to pass back in May as a retaliatory measure against fellow Democratic lawmakers for opposing his education reform bill, as the Tribune reported at the time.
SB 3 has been staunchly opposed by LGBTQ+ groups, who have pointed out that trans student athletes are already effectively barred from playing on gender-congruent sports teams. The University Interscholastic League of Texas, which oversees all high school athletics in the state, only allows trans students to play in alignment with their gender if they present a corrected birth certificate.
Getting a birth certificate that aligns with a trans person’s sense of self is difficult in Texas. The state currently requires a court order before the gender marker on a birth document is updated and many “judges are averse to issuing” them, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE).
Ricardo Martinez, CEO of the statewide advocacy group Equality Texas, said that SB 3 will only make it harder for transgender kids to exist in a state that doesn’t always make it easy for them.
“Every time these politicians have renewed their push for anti-transgender legislation, I have thought about Leon, a 9 year old trans boy whose family had to leave Texas because they felt unsafe, or Libby who has been coming to the Capitol for five years to ask legislators to stop attacking her,” he said in a statement earlier this month. “I think of all the trans kids and their loving families who attended rallies at the Capitol this year and who were tormented by anti-equality adults.”
“Our community has shown up to the Capitol time and time again to ask their elected officials for empathy, compassion and understanding,” Martinez added. “Instead, we have been subjected to a level of cruelty that is beneath contempt.”
SB 3 is among the unprecedented 70 anti-LGBTQ+ bills put forward during Texas’ four legislative sessions, according to Equality Texas. Other pieces of legislation introduced this year include bills banning trans minors from receiving health care that affirms their gender identity and removing these vulnerable youth from their homes if their parents allow them to transition.
Should SB 3 be signed into law, Texas will join nine other states in restricting trans student participation in sports. These states include Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
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