The Georgia High School Association’s (GHSA) executive committee unanimously voted on Wednesday to ban transgender people from playing with a sports team that doesn’t match the sex listed on their birth certificate. Advocates for the ban claim the ban is to ensure fairness in school sports among cisgender teams, the Atlanta Voice reported.
“Everyone should have an opportunity to participate, but the field of play should be fair,” Cole Muzio, president of the conservative Frontline Policy Council, said. “GHSA’s action today recognizes science, reflects reality, and restores fairness.”
However, opponents of the ban said it’s excluding transgender children and sending a harmful message to a vulnerable community known to self-harm or commit suicide.
“To these very vulnerable trans kids who do not appear to have substantial mental health issues, they will receive this as a message of rejection,” State Sen. Sally Harrell, an Atlanta Democrat and mother of a transgender child, said.
Those against the ban also said that it could contravene Title IX of federal education law forbidding sex discrimination, which Joe Biden signed to prohibit discrimination in school sports and other places based on gender identity.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp agreed with the ban and signed House Bill 1084, reiterating the GHSA’s power to ban transgender athletes.
“If the athletic association determines that it is necessary and appropriate to prohibit students whose gender is male from participating in athletic events that are designed for students whose gender is female, then the athletic association may adopt a policy to that effect; provided, however, that such policy shall be applied to all of the athletic association’s participating public high schools.”
Georgia lawmakers were split on the law that covered the issue. House representatives passed the bill 98-71 and 32-21 in the Senate.
During the final night of the state’s legislative session, opposers of the bill were surprised at how everything was rushed as they went over the midnight adjournment time. Amid reading the bill’s passage, many lawmakers didn’t have copies of the text and didn’t know what they were voting on.
Jeff Graham, the executive director of Georgia Equality, an advocacy group for the LGBTQ community, said that the process was so rushed that representatives of some public school districts that voted for the bill were going against their policies welcoming transgender students.
“Their actions, to move so hastily and without consideration of the harms that this will do without actually researching the complexities and nuances of this issue, will ultimately hurt kids throughout Georgia,” Graham said.
So far, about 12 red states have banned transgender women or girls in sports. States like Texas have followed Georgia’s path and left the decision to athletic associations.
