Earlier this month, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill that banned transgender women and girls from participating in female school sports. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is poised to sign a bill barring transgender youth from participating on school sports teams that align with their gender identity.
The trans sports ban bill cleared the Republican-controlled House 76-54 and was passed 19-12 when it went to the state Senate. After returning to the House for reconciliation, it was approved a final time 76-61.
Texas is now joins seven other states that passed similar laws this year. The measure requires public schools from elementary to collegiate levels to assign athletes based on the sex noted on their birth certificates “at or near the time of birth.”
Greg Abbott placed a sports ban on the agenda for all three special legislative sessions ordered this year.
“That it’s taken them four sessions in a GOP trifecta shows how serious the opposition to this bill is,” said Kate Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ advocacy organization.
Abbott has been enthusiastic about a ban, Oakley said, because “the governor has an eye toward higher office and is being challenged from the right.”
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NBA stories via Google! Follow Us
The measure was also an attempt by Republican lawmakers “to show they’ve done something,” Oakley added. “They’ve got a failed electrical grid and a Covid crisis, but they’re gerrymandering and attacking trans kids and reproductive rights.”
A 2016 report from the Williams Institute at UCLA estimated that Texas has one of the largest transgender populations in the United States. It also has reported the most killings of transgender people of any state.
Matt Hill, a senior associate communications director with the White House, denounced House Bill 25, which would require student athletes in K-12 schools to participate on sports teams that align with the gender listed on their birth certificate at or near the time of birth.
“Our message to young transgender people in Texas and across the country: these hateful bills are bullying disguised as legislation, and @POTUS and our Administration will always keep fighting for the full equality LGBTQ+ folks deserve,” he wrote in a tweet.
White House spokesperson Ike Hajinazarian told The Dallas Morning News that “the White House will be engaging stakeholders in Texas and other states in the coming days and weeks” but did not specify what action it will take.
