Texas Governor Signs Anti-Trans Sports Bill
States continue to mount legislative attacks on trans youth
BY MATT TRACY
Texas Governor Greg
Abbott on October 25
signed legislation banning
transgender student
athletes from participating
in sports in accordance with their
gender identity, making his state
the eighth this year to approve
such harmful legislation.
The law, which goes into effect in
January, stipulates that studentathletes
can only participate in
school sports that match the gender
on their birth certifi cate at the
time they were born. The measure
bans the University Interscholastic
League — the state’s governing
body for school sports — from
allowing athletes to use amended
birth certifi cates. The only exception
to the rule is when a sport is
not offered for more than one gender.
Lawmakers initially struggled
to gain suffi cient support for a
similar legislative effort earlier
this year, but they used a special
session to advance the legislation
through both houses of the state’s
GOP-controlled Legislature.
“We are devastated at the passage
of this bill,” Richard Martinez,
the CEO of the statewide organization
Equality Texas, said in
a written statement. “Despite the
powerful advocacy and testimony
of trans kids and adults, families
and advocates, and the many
emails and calls our community
placed to the Governor’s offi ce to
veto this harmful piece of legislation,
it is now law. Most immediately,
our focus is our community and
integrating concepts of healing justice
to provide advocates who have
already been harmed by this bill
with spaces to refi ll their cup and
unpack the acute trauma caused
by these legislative sessions.”
The legislation was approved in
the face of fi erce resistance from
hundreds of business groups,
several high-profi le current and
former professional athletes, and
others who warned of the perils of
sidelining youth from sports participation
for discriminatory purposes.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is leading his state in the discriminatory bid to ban trans studentathletes
from participating in sports.
Adding their voices to the
cause were 12-year-old Adelyn and
11-year-old Libby Gonzales, two
Texas-based youth who produced
videos with the Human Rights
Campaign to explain how the legislation
would harm them.
Despite the legislative attack on
trans athletes, ESPN reported that
the NCAA is not planning to move
upcoming championship games
slated to be played in Texas —
though those opposed to inclusion
in sports are being put on notice.
“Given the Association’s foundational
values of inclusion and fair
competition, the NCAA intends to
conduct its championships as they
were awarded but will require all
hosts to reaffi rm their commitment
to ensure a nondiscriminatory and
safe environment for all college
athletes per their host agreement,”
the NCAA said in August, according
to ESPN. “Any host who cannot
commit to the nondiscrimination
policy should contact the NCAA
immediately.”
The campaign to sideline trans
athletes has ballooned into a nationwide
fi xation by Republicans
— and some conservative Democrats
— who are searching for what
they hope are winning issues in
REUTERS/LOREN ELLIOTT
their respective states, even when
their arguments are rooted in discrimination.
Lawmakers pushing
the bills have failed to provide adequate
justifi cation or show cases
of trans student-athletes disrupting
sports environments in the
country. Nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ
bills have been proposed this year
across more than half of US states
— and only a tiny fraction of those
end up advancing.
“Opponents of LGBTQ equality
are using our transgender youth
as part of their politically-motivated
assault on the equal rights
of transgender people,” GLSEN interim
executive director Melanie
Willingham-Jaggers said in a written
statement. “GLSEN strongly
POLITICS
condemns Governor Abbott for
signing HB 25 into law and we
will continue to devote our support
and resources to the transgender
young people in Texas and across
the country who are leading the
fi ght against these kinds of cruel
political attacks.”
A PBS/NPR/Marist poll recently
showed that an outright majority
— 60 percent — of Republicans in
10 swing states oppose anti-trans
policies and 87 percent support the
right to medical care for trans individuals.
However, more than 80
percent of Republican respondents
are against allowing transgender
inclusion in sports, while 75 percent
of Democrats support trans
high school athletes.
Legal challenges have already
stifl ed some anti-trans sports legislation,
such as in Idaho, where
a district court found that state’s
ban on trans girls from playing in
sports violated the constitutional
rights of transgender girls. The
State of Idaho subsequently turned
to the US Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit to appeal that ruling
and the policy remains on hold, at
least for now.
The Biden administration’s Department
of Education, meanwhile,
published a Notice of Interpretation
in the Federal Register
earlier this year maintaining that
Title IX — which bans discrimination
on the basis of sex in education
— also applies to discrimination
on the basis of gender identity
or sexual orientation. The Biden
administration’s notice cited the
Supreme Court ruling in Bostock
v. Clayton County.
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