Georgia legislators make progress on limiting transgender participation in sports

The Georgia Senate passed a bill late Tuesday restricting students claiming transgender identity from playing sports that do not align with their biological sex, sending the measure to the state House.

Several transgender-related measures were stitched together and attached to what was a bipartisan mental health proposal last week, and it passed over Democratic objections on Tuesday.

The bill now heads to the Georgia House, in which lawmakers will consider whether to require students to play on sports teams and use facilities that align with their biological sex, as well as whether to require schools to notify parents which books their children check out. The bill also includes a restriction on sexual education until seventh grade.

“It protects the rights of women to compete against each other in athletic competition,” said Republican state Sen. Clint Dixon, who curated the bills.

“A person who has gone through puberty as a man and who has developed as a man should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports, no matter what gender identity he claims at that time,” Dixon said. “No matter what the male claims his gender identity is, it would be based on the birth certificate, and would not be allowed to play in those girls sports.”

The initial bipartisan bill was originally aimed at safeguarding the mental health of student-athletes, but Republican leadership added the transgender-related components as a way to protect the mental and physical health of girls in Georgia, they said.

“I mean, what about females? We need to protect females and the sanctity of their playing their sports,” Dixon said. “If males want to play sports, they need to play it with males.”

Conservative groups in Georgia, such as the lobbying group Frontline Policy Action, applauded the move.

“Georgians overwhelmingly support saving girls sports, protecting the privacy of our daughters in bathrooms and changing rooms, and preserving the innocence of our children,” Frontline President Cole Muzio said, according to the Georgia Recorder. “Hyperbolic statements and partisan rhetoric will not distract from the simple reality that this is something our citizens both want and deserve.”

Democratic state Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes slammed the measure as a “Frankenstein bill,” adding, “To marginalize and isolate transgender students, denying them the camaraderie and growth afforded by team sports and subject them to the indignity of being treated as outcasts in their own schools.”

The bill inspired protests from some LGBT-identifying Georgians, who were already demonstrating outside the state Capitol for transgender liberation day.

One such protester, a female-identifying pastor who is biologically male, Kalie Hargrove, told the Georgia Recorder, “There’s this narrative out there that there are no trans kids and that it’s something that people choose to be later.” 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“It’s a complete myth. Trans kids exist,” Hargrove continued. “I know because I was one, when I was going through puberty, I didn’t even live in a place where I had the language to explain my experience, what I was feeling.”

The bill will head back to the GOP-controlled state House, in which action is uncertain, in time for the last legislative session on Thursday.