North Dakota governor signs bill restricting transgender women in school sports

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) signed into law two bills that ban transgender girls and women from competing in women’s sports in K-12 school and college in the state, putting it on a growing list of Republican-led states that have taken similar action.

“House Bill 1249 preserves athletics for girls and boys under traditional Title IX protections,” Burgum said in a statement. “House Bill 1489 applies similar protections to women’s athletics at the collegiate level.”

The ban on transgender girls and women competing in women’s sports in the state comes as Burgum admitted that there have been no instances of a transgender girl or women trying to compete in such sports in the last two years. Burgum vetoed a similar bill two years ago, when GOP lawmakers did not have the margins in the legislature to override the governor’s objection.

“Over the past two years, with more than 27,000 students participating in North Dakota high school sports… there still has not been a single recorded incident of a transgender girl playing or entering the process to even ask to play on a North Dakota girls’ team,” Burgum said.

The laws put North Dakota on par with Florida, Texas and 18 other Republican-led states that have instituted similar restrictions on transgender girls and women from competing in sports, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

The North Dakota ban comes as the issue has continued to make national headlines. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene on behalf of West Virginia to enforce its transgender athlete ban that had been blocked by an appeals court, allowing a transgender girl to compete on her middle school’s female teams until a final judicial decision.

The two North Dakota bills passed the state’s legislature with a veto-proof majority. Republicans have a supermajority in both the House and the Senate.