This past Saturday, Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) committed to barring transgender athletes from competing in college sports in the state of Texas.
Abbott announced a plan to ban males identifying as women from competing in women’s sports during a ‘fireside chat’ with former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker at Young America’s Foundation’s ‘Dallas Freedom Conference’ over the weekend.
“This next session, we will pass a law prohibiting biological men to compete against women in college sports,” Governor Abbott proclaimed, adding, “We’ve fought for the rights of women to be able to succeed in this world only to have that now superseded by this ideology that men are going to be empowered to compete against women.”
Governor Abbott oversaw the implementation of similar legislation back in 2021, which barred transgender athletes from participating in sports opposite of their biological sex.
Abbott made specific reference to the controversy surrounding transgender swimmer Lia Thomas as part of his argument for extending the ban to the collegiate level.
Thomas, a biological man, went from an average swimmer on the men’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania to the top of the national charts on the women’s swim team, defeating Olympic and Olympic-caliber swimmers up to the top. Through all of this, Thomas has become the national face of the transgender athlete debate.
If this legislation is adopted, Texas would join Florida as the only two states that bar biological males from participating in women’s collegiate sports.
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The governor is already facing pushback in the aftermath of this announcement. Following his statement, ‘Equality Texas’ claimed that this legislation would “abandon” trans athletes. “This type of legislation would abandon trans athletes and leave them without a way to express themselves in sports.”
“This type of legislation would abandon trans athletes and leave them without a way to express themselves in sports.”
— Equality Texas (@EqualityTexas) February 13, 2023
It is likely that like Florida before it, Texas’s ban would be met with legal challenges. However, if, like Florida, Texas prevails in those legal battles, it is likely more states will follow suit.
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