Story at a glance
- Lawmakers in Louisiana are hoping to become the 16th state to pass a law preventing transgender athletes from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) vetoed a similar bill last year.
- If the bill passes, Louisiana will be the 16th state to enact such a law. More are likely to come.
- Outside of legislative action, state athletic associations in more than half of U.S. states have put policies in place barring trans athletes from high school sports.
Senators in Louisiana this week passed legislation seeking to prevent transgender women and girls from playing on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity, sending the bill to the state House of Representatives for consideration.
Under the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” state K-12 schools, as well as universities, would be required to designate sports teams according to the “biological sex of the team members.” The measure states that “teams designated for females are not open to participation by biological males,” but does not include a similar clause for “biological females” — or athletes assigned female at birth — desiring to compete on men’s teams.
The bill argues that inherent “biological differences” exist between females and males, and that males hold a natural advantage over women and girls in athletics because of greater strength, speed and endurance developed as a result of male puberty.
Louisiana Senate President Beth Mizell (R), who is sponsoring the bill, said Tuesday after the bill passed with little opposition that events from the past year have shown “why we need to protect women’s sports.” Mizell on the Senate floor Tuesday reportedly invoked the recent victory of Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who clinched an NCAA women’s title last month.
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Several collegiate swimmers who competed against Thomas have spoken out about the athletic association’s alleged failure to protect its athletes, claiming Thomas and other transgender female athletes have ripped competitive opportunities away from them.
Opponents to the Louisiana bill have said the legislation aims to solve a problem that doesn’t exist in the state, particularly because the Louisiana High School Athletic Association already has a policy in place stating that student athletes may only compete on sports teams that match the gender listed on their birth certificate. The policy does not apply to transgender students who have undergone gender-affirming surgeries, although such medical intervention is not recommended for minors, according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
If the bill is passed by the state House, and subsequently Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, Louisiana would become the 16th state to enact a law expressly banning transgender athletes from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
A similar bill was vetoed last year by Edwards, who called it “a solution in search of a problem.”
Kentucky last week became the latest state to approve such legislation when lawmakers voted to override Gov. Andy Beshear’s (D) veto of the state’s own Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which would similarly ban only transgender women and girls from participating on school sports teams aligning with their gender identity. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s (R) veto of a nearly identical bill was also overridden by the state legislature, which said it felt compelled to reverse the governor’s rejection because “doing nothing is taking a step backward for women.”
Only one other Republican governor — Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb — has vetoed legislation seeking to prevent transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity this year, writing in a veto message last month that he is unsure whether the bill solves an actual problem and “leaves too many unanswered questions.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, also vetoed the state’s proposed Fairness in Women’s Sports Act earlier this week after shutting down a nearly identical bill last year.
But similar legislation has seen success elsewhere, and the governors of South Dakota, Iowa, Oklahoma and Arizona have all signed bills into law this year banning transgender students from athletics.
In 2020, Idaho became the first state to enact such a law, but a temporary injunction is currently blocking its enforcement. Under that law, which is also titled the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, “athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex.”
An Idaho federal district court in 2020 preliminarily enjoined the law, finding that it discriminated against transgender athletes in the state. Shortly after, the Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending the law.
The following year, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and South Dakota (by an executive order) all enacted laws barring transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Alabama and West Virginia followed soon after, although another temporary injunction is blocking West Virginia from enforcing the law.
Last summer, Montana, Florida and Texas also adopted laws banning transgender students in the state from competing in athletics. A lawsuit is currently pending against the Florida law, which prohibits “biological males” from competing on female sports teams.
According to the group Freedom for All Americans, which tracks legislation considered discriminatory against the nation’s LGBTQ+ population, transgender athlete bans are under consideration in nearly 20 states, including Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, Minnesota, Missouri, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
But outside of legislative action, some states have taken a more novel approach. Like Louisiana, the state high school athletic associations of Indiana and Kentucky require transgender athletes undergo gender-affirming surgeries to compete on sports teams that match their gender identity.
In Idaho, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Georgia, state athletic association guidance specifies that transgender and nonbinary students may only participate on gender-segregated teams consistent with their sex assigned at birth, or that which is listed on their original birth certificate.
Guidance in more than a dozen other states places “discriminatory restrictions on participation” for transgender and nonbinary student athletes, according to the website Transathlete, a collection of resources about trans inclusion in athletics that was created by triathlete Chris Mosier, who is transgender.
In Maine, for instance, students may play on sports teams consistent with their gender identity only if it does not “result in an unfair athletic advantage or would present an unacceptable risk of injury to other student athletes.”