As Sport New Zealand and New Zealand Rugby continue to address the “complex issue” of transgender inclusion in sport, in the United States Kansas lawmakers are moving to ban transgender athletes.
Transgender females in West Virginia would be banned from competing in female sports in middle and high schools and colleges under a bill that narrowly won state Senate approval Thursday.
After 90 minutes of passionate debate, the Senate passed the bill on an 18-15 vote. The bill heads back to the House of Delegates to address Senate changes with only a few days left in the regular legislative session.
While in Kansas, LGBTQI+ rights advocates are relying on the state’s Democratic governor or the courts to block a ban on transgender athletes in girls’ or women’s school sports after conservatives on Thursday moved to push it through the GOP-controlled Legislature.
Republican negotiators for the state House and Senate on education issues agreed to strip an unrelated bill of its contents, drop in the proposed ban and send the measure to both chambers for an up-or-down vote by the end of the week. The resulting measure is all but certain to pass, given both chambers’ GOP supermajorities and conservative leaders.
Kansas is among more than 20 states that have considered such a ban this year, pushing back against an executive order from Democratic President Joe Biden aimed at preventing discrimination against transgender students. Idaho enacted such a ban last year, and Republican governors in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee have signed measures into law this year.
Freshman state Rep. Stephanie Byers, of Wichita, the state’s first transgender lawmaker, called events in Kansas “heart-breaking.”
“We’re looking at opening up a doorway that tells trans kids they are not welcome in any way, shape or form,” she said. “It’s coming through our schools – the one place where everybody should feel welcome and appreciated.”
Supporters argued that they’re preserving decades of hard-won opportunities for “biological” girls and women to compete in K-12 sports and win college athletic scholarships.
“We want to protect all female athletes, K through collegiate,” said Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican and former college basketball player who is the ban’s main legislative sponsor.
Despite Republicans’ hold over the Kansas Legislature, LGBTQ-rights advocates have in recent years prevented hearings on what they consider anti-trans legislation, partly by tapping concerns about potential opposition from businesses.
