An Oklahoma lawmaker’s proposal to prohibit transgender females from competing in school-sponsored athletic events has drawn the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union and a statewide LGBTQ rights group.
If passed, Senate Bill 331, filed by State Sen. Micheal Bergstrom (R-Adair), would restrict biologically female athletes from playing against transgender female athletes. Also referred to as the Save Women’s Sports Act, the measure designates that athletic teams sponsored by a public or private school would be based on biological sex and broken into three categories: male, female and co-ed.
The proposal drew sharp criticism from ACLU spokeswoman Nicole McAfee.
“It is certainly disappointing to see this legislation filed,” she said. “This legislation only exists to harm trans youth. This excludes trans kids from participating in sports they sign up for. It is inflammatory and preys on the fears of protecting women and is based in hate.”
McAfee emphasized that Bergstrom’s bill suggests “trans girls and trans women are not real girls or women. That simply is not the case. This is just another egregious attack on the trans community.”
McAfee is hopeful the proposal doesn’t receive a full legislative hearing.
However, Bergstrom said in a prepared statement that transgender females are “damaging the athletic futures of non-transgender females.”
“We have seen this happening around our nation – young women who have trained for years to become the best in their sport find themselves competing against young men who decide to identify as female,” he said. “Now is the time for the legislature to act and head off this issue in Oklahoma.”
The proposed bill also allows that any student deprived of an athletic opportunity or who suffers “direct or indirect harm” as a violation of this measure would have a legal cause of action against the school.
“It’s unfair to ask our female athletes to compete against biological males in any sporting event, unless the team is categorized as co-ed,” the senator said.
The proposal would also prohibit any board of education or athletic association from entertaining a complaint, opening an investigation or taking adverse action against a school for maintaining athletic teams designated specifically for biological females.
Allie Shinn, executive director of the LGBTQ rights organization Freedom Oklahoma, called Bergstrom’s bill “misguided” and “a shame.”
“This bill doesn’t hold water,” she said. “There is no evidence being a transgender athlete offers any advantage. It’s difficult for people to understand what it means to be transgender.”
Shinn said Freedom Oklahoma will lobby against SB 331, adding that she hopes legislative leaders will not give the measure a hearing.
“I hope they (legislators) take their duty seriously to protect all of our children. We don’t want what happened in other states to happen in Oklahoma,” she said.
In 2019, a federal judge in North Carolina approved a settlement that restricts the state government from banning transgender people from using bathrooms in state buildings that match their gender identity.
The settlement came three years after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a bill that required transgender people in government and public buildings to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate. The 2016 measure also made it illegal for cities to adopt anti-discrimination policies intended to protect LGBTQ people.
The approved bill brought about serious economic sanctions when the NBA and the NCAA moved events elsewhere. Facing the loss of billions of dollars, North Carolina lawmakers repealed the measure in 2017.