Alabama and North Dakota Advance Bills to Protect Girls Sports

Girls sports

More states are joining the fray in the battle to ensure the integrity of girls sports by permitting only biological females to compete in female competitions.

This week, both Alabama and North Dakota advanced bills to protect girls sports.

In Alabama, both the House and Senate passed legislation on Thursday that will “require K-12 athletes to play on teams based on the biological sex listed on their birth certificates.” It passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 74-19 while the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 25-5.

“I believe that this bill is important… to protect the integrity of women’s athletics,” Republican Sen. Garlan Gudger of Cullman said while debating the legislation. “I think it is unfair for biological males to compete and beat females in high school sports. There are biological advantages that men possess just naturally because of genetics.”

Now, the legislation goes to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey for approval, though she has not yet indicated whether she will sign the bill into law.

In North Dakota, according to the Bismarck Tribune, “[The] Senate on Thursday passed House Bill 1298, brought by Rep. Ben Koppelman, R-West Fargo, on a 27-20 vote. The House on Wednesday had passed the bill 69-25.”

Gov. Doug Burgum has also not indicated whether he will sign the bill, though he has three legislative days to act on it.

The news follows on the heels of the West Virginia legislature passing its own “Save Girls Sports” Act, which Governor Jim Justice said he would either sign or allow to become law without his signature. “It is the right thing for us at a middle school level or the high school level in our state,” he said.

After West Virginia’s bill, Alabama and North Dakota will become the sixth and seventh states respectively to protect girls and women’s sports from biological males wishing to compete in them, should the legislation be signed by the states’ respective governors.

Dozens of other states are considering similar legislation.

Of note, other media outlets, including The New York Times, have put their ideological bias on display in their reporting on the legislation.

For example, The Times framed the bills in Alabama and North Dakota by reporting that the acts would ban “transgender girls and women [from] competing on sports teams that match their gender identity.”

While this is technically correct, notice what The Times didn’t say. Biological males who think they are females will still be permitted to compete in sports. However, they will have to do so as biological males.

Additionally, The Times wrote, “lawmakers in more than 30 states have introduced dozens of measures this legislative session that aim to ban transgender youth health care and limit their participation in society, the highest number of anti-transgender bills ever filed in a single year.”

For those who believe in the biological reality of male and female, what does this really mean?

When The Times says that some legislation aims to “ban transgender youth health care,” it should be noted that this does not mean some states are debating whether to deny transgender-identified youth access to healthcare.

What it does means is that several states are considering bills to prohibit doctors from prescribing cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and experimental, unproven and highly invasive sex-change surgeries from being performed on children under 19 years of age. These procedures are harmful, and they have serious, lifelong, and irreversible consequences.

Last week, The Daily Citizen reported that Arkansas became the first state in the nation to prohibit these procedures from being performed on minors.

Additionally, The Times claims that states are aiming to “limit [transgender youth’s] participation in society.” This obfuscates reality and derides legislation that protects girls sports, and ensures that only biological females can compete with other females. Again, transgender-identified females, who are biological males, are still able to compete with other biological males. No limits on their participation in society have taken place.

On a practical basis, for parents worried whether their daughter may compete against biological males in school athletic competitions, or who are concerned about biological males attempting to use their daughter’s restrooms at school, Focus on the Family is here to help. We have created a free resource titled “Back to School for Parents.” The guide will help you learn about your rights and your children’s rights and give you suggestions about how to advocate for your child.

To learn more about this free resource, click here.

You can follow this author on Parler @ZacharyMettler

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