Three more states have advanced anti-trans sports bills amid the tidal wave of discriminatory legislation pushed by Republican lawmakers in 2021. A pair of bills in Florida and Texas will move onto their respective Senate and House after clearing their first major hurdles, while North Dakota sent a similar measure to its governor’s desk.
On Wednesday, the Texas Senate passed Senate Bill 29, while the GOP-controlled Florida House passed House Bill 1475. Both bills, if signed into law, would ban transgender female students from playing girls’ sports in school.
The trans community and their allies have come out strongly against these bills, pointing out the lack of evidence to support them. Rebecca Marques, Texas state director for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), said that “far-right extremist lawmakers” have “turned their sights on transgender youth” during the 2021 legislative session “despite the fact that they can give no examples of actual problems.”
“This bill is opposed by educators, sports organizations and medical professionals,” Marques added in a statement.
In Florida, Democratic lawmakers accused their Republican colleagues of pushing a bill designed to endear them to their most extreme supporters. “HB 1475 is purely political, and it plays on the fears and the ignorance about the transgender community in order to score partisan points,” said openly gay State Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-49th District), in comments reported by Politico.
But supporters of these efforts, including State Representative Traci Koster (R-64th District), maintain that the legislation is meant to “protect girls’ sports.” Koster told Politico that men and women are “designed differently.
“[T]here is an inherent, biological, undeniable difference between men and women, boys and girls,” she said.
Opponents of both the Texas and Florida bills hoped the financial impact of these bills would sway legislators to vote against them, invoking the NCAA’s threats to potentially pull championship events from states with discriminatory laws. In Florida, Democrats used the example of Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Georgia due to their discriminatory voting law.
“Discrimination is bad for business, bad for Texans, bad for Texas,” Marques said.
In Texas, SB 29 is one of five anti-LGBTQ+ bills moved forward by the legislature this week alone. Others including are SB 131, which targets doctors who provide gender-affirming care for trans youth, and SB 1646, which would classify treatments related to transitioning as “child abuse” and could result in parents who affirm their children’s gender losing custody of their kids.
The trans children at the center of this fight are “kids who just want to play, and they deserve that chance,” Marques said. “Pacifying a far-right base by targeting the health, safety and welfare of transgender children is heartless and cruel,” she added.
Not only are these bills discriminatory, the White House warned last month that they are also illegal. “The president believes that trans rights are human rights and that no one should be discriminated on the basis of sex,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a March 5 press briefing. “Not only is this the law of the land, it’s his own deeply held view.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the North Dakota House passed HB 1298, another bill banning transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams, by a 69-25 margin. In total, at least 64 similar bills are under consideration nationwide, according to HRC.
Having already passed the state Senate last month on a 32-15 vote, HB 1298 now awaits final consideration from Republican governor Doug Burgum. While the Arkansas legislature successfully overturned a gubernatorial veto of an anti-trans medical care bill earlier this month, such is unlikely to be the fate of HB 1298 if Burgum rejects the measure. The bill did not pass the Senate by a veto-proof majority.
HRC is calling on Burgum to veto the legislation, warning that HB 1928 “welcomes scrutiny and potential harm to the state.
“By sending this dangerous and discriminatory anti-transgender sports ban bill to Governor Burgum’s desk, North Dakota legislators have targeted a group of students who already face high levels of discrimination,” HRC president Alphonso David said in a press release, adding: “Transgender kids are kids, and denying them the opportunity to participate is dangerous and harmful.”
These bills are also being passed despite there being no evidence that trans inclusion in sports harms cisgender girls. In fact, research shows that allowing transgender youth to compete in alignment with their gender identity benefits all athletes.
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