Supporters of a Minnesota bill that would ban transgender athletes from girls’ sports rallied at the state Capitol Monday ahead of a vote in the House.
The measure calls for restricting participation in girls sports at the elementary and secondary school levels to biological females. Republicans are calling the bill the “Preserving Girls’ Sports Act” and say it will keep a level playing field in school athletics.
The bill sponsor, Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, said it was about fairness.
Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
“Science and common sense tell us that biological differences do matter,” Scott said. “They matter in athletics, and when boys and men compete in girls sports, they have an inherent advantage.”
Scott spoke at a rally ahead of the vote with around 200 supporters of the bill and Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer turned conservative activist and prominent opponent of transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports.
During the rally, Gaines was accompanied by Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies for security and former Minneapolis Police Union President Bob Kroll.
“Minnesota for too long has turned its back on women and girls,” she said. “The concept of gender identity and the reality of sex are in direct conflict.”
At a news conference following the rally, Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers and LGBT activists called the bill a “hateful” attack on the rights of transgender people and a distraction from issues that affect significantly broader swaths of the public.
Scott’s bill is the latest that Minnesota Republicans have advanced to the House floor with their one-seat advantage over DFLers, and comes amid a national push against transgender athletes at the state and federal level.
Riley Gaines. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
The bill is unlikely to pass in the House, where Republicans are one vote short of the 68 needed to pass bills. House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman says all 66 DFL members are prepared to vote no.
Senate measure
Minnesota Senate Republicans also attempted to vote on a transgender athletes bill Monday, though Senate DFLers blocked their motion to take up the measure 34-33 on party lines.
Minnesota policy on transgender athletic participation is also facing challenges from the administration of President Donald Trump, which asserts that allowing those born male who identify as female to participate in women’s school sports violates Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in education.
In February, the president signed an executive order allowing federal agencies to enforce the administration’s interpretation of Title IX, though some states and high school sports groups have said they would not comply. Minnesota is among them, something that prompted threats of legal action by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Debate
Gaines said Minnesota and other states’ willingness to risk the loss of federal funding to defy federal orders banning transgender athletes shows a commitment among Democrats to “destroy biological reality” and “disavow” girls’ rights.
Opponents of the bill said conservatives are playing “political theater” and trying to keep transgender people from fully participating in society.
“Transgender people are the built-in target for lawmakers right now looking to score cheap political points instead of actually doing their jobs and serving their constituents in Minnesota and across our country,” said Chris Mosier, the first transgender athlete to join a U.S. national team.
Mosier, a triathlete who challenged and helped change the International Olympic Committee’s rules on transgender athletes, joined DFL lawmakers at a news conference on the bill Monday afternoon.
Rep. Leigh Finke. (Ben Hovland/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)
Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker, said current state law doesn’t question whether six or seven year old girls can participate in sports, but the GOP bill does.
“That’s what this bill says — if you are a six-year-old trans girl, we are going to target you for exclusion,” Finke said. “It is hateful. It is cruel.”
Rep. Sydney Jordan and Rep. Jamie Long, both Minneapolis DFLers, questioned how the restrictions would be enforced if the bill became law. They raised the possibility that minors might have to take mouth swab tests so their biological sex could be determined by a laboratory, or even have their sex physically verified.
That would be a major invasion of children’s privacy and potentially discourage participation in girls sports, they said.
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