Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law a Bill banning transgender girls from participating in female sports at public schools, joining a wave of similar measures emerging from Republican-controlled statehouses across the United States.
According to a Reuters report, supporters of the Bill, due to take effect on 18 January, say it is aimed at protecting fairness in school sports by eliminating what they see as an inherent physical competitive advantage of transgender athletes playing on female teams. Equal rights advocates decry such restrictions as discriminatory, “hate”-based measures whose real purpose is to energise hard-core social conservatives, with little or no evidence that trans women or girls are dominating sports.
Seven other states have passed similar laws this year, part of a Republican-led national campaign since Idaho in March 2020 barred athletes who were assigned a male gender at birth from competing on sports teams against those assigned as female in public schools or colleges. Enforcement of the Idaho ban has been blocked by a federal court pending the outcome of a legal challenge against the measure. At least 35 Bills to exclude transgender youth from athletics have been introduced in 31 states this year, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Accommodating trans athletes without rejecting the reality of human biology
IAAF decision on testosterone 'a victory for female athletes everywhere'
Namibia unhappy over testosterone-level exclusion of female athletes