Republican Tennessee state Rep. Bruce Griffey is taking action to put an end to transgender athletes playing in any school sport except for those corresponding to their birth gender.
“We are seeing more and more transgender athletes competing and posting victories in traditionally gendered sports competitions and doing so to the detriment of girls and women biologically born female. Boys and men, due to testosterone levels, bigger bone structure, greater lung capacity, and larger heart size have physical advantages in sports relative to girls and women,” Griffey said recently to the Tennessee Star.
Griffey’s HB 1572 states that each elementary and secondary school in this state that receives federal funding from the state or “a local government, or both, shall require, for an official or unofficial school-sanctioned athletic or sporting event, that each athlete participating in the athletic or sporting event participates with and competes against other athletes based on the athlete’s biological sex as indicated on the athlete’s original birth certificate issued at the time of birth.”
It stated a school shall not accept birth certificates for purposes of participation in an athletic or sporting event that has been revised or amended with respect to the sex of an athlete.
The Equality Act is being pushed by House Democrats. If passed by the Senate, it would redefine the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
However, not all people agree. Some in the LGBTQ community are challenging the reasoning.
Nine-time Wimbledon champion and tennis super-star Martina Navratilova realized something is amiss and obviously wrong. “Clearly that can’t be right. You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women,” Navratilova tweeted in 2019. “There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard.”
HR 5 constitutes a civil right for “male athletes to self-identify as females in sports competitions,” added Griffey. “I believe it is important for states to take a stand. This is what I seek to do through the filing of House Bill 1572.” Washington State will additionally be discussing a bill preventing transgender males from competing in female sports. Republican Bill Klippert, who is filing the bill said, it’s about fairness.
“I’m running this in support of female athletes, so they can compete against each other and not have to compete against male athletes who have different hormones flowing through their veins, which gives them much more muscle capacity.”
Most Americans don’t support transgender competitors in women’s sports. According to a Rasmussen Reports poll, 51 percent of those surveyed opposed biological males from entering female sports. Only 29 percent didn’t believe there was a problem with biological males from participating in female sports.