South Dakota Enacts Anti-Trans Sports Bill
State continues to use go after trans kids
BY MATT TRACY
South Dakota Governor
Kristi Noem signed an
anti-trans sports bill into
law days after the state’s
House of Representatives approved
the legislation.
At the same time, lawmakers
also passed another bill that would
limit trans people from using restrooms,
locker rooms, and other
public facilities in public schools,
but that measure was subsequently
killed by the State Senate.
The sports bill, which bars
transgender girls and women and
some non-binary individuals from
participating in women’s sports in
accordance with their gender identity,
passed by a 50-17 margin. The
bill forces student-athletes, including
college athletes, to play sports
in accordance with the gender they
were assigned at birth.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been targeting rans student-athletes for years.
“Only female athletes, based on
their biological sex, may participate
in any team, sport, or athletic
event designated as being for females,
women, or girls,” the bill’s
text stated.
REUTERS/OCTAVIO JONES
Governor Noem has already
implemented executive orders discriminating
against trans athletes
— and her team defended the legislation
during an ugly House State
Affairs committee hearing just
POLITICS
days before the bill came to a fi nal
vote. Noem’s chief of staff, Mark
Miller, said the law would ensure
“that what we’re seeing all over the
country does not happen in South
Dakota.”
“It’s sort of like terrorism, you
want to keep it over there, not let it
get to here,” Miller said.
Lawmakers already passed an
anti-trans sports bill last year, but
Noem declined to sign it after she
complained that the law would
have placed an overwhelming administrative
burden on schools.
She had also expressed concern
that the law would have negative
consequences on South Dakota
colleges because the policy was out
of step with national rules governing
college sports. In the end, she
simply approved a pair of executive
orders last year carrying out
her plan to sideline trans kids from
playing fi elds.
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