Tennessee Becomes Third USA State This Month To Enact Restrictions For Trans Athletes
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has signed into law a controversial bill requiring students to prove their sex at birth to participate in middle and high school sports.
The bill, which Lee signed on Friday, makes Tennessee the third state this month to adopt legislation aimed at restricting transgender girls from playing female sports. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a similar bill on Thursday, as did Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves earlier this month. All three governors are Republicans.
The new law in Tennessee requires students beyond the fourth grade to show legal documents demonstrating their assigned sex at the time of their birth to participate in school athletics. The law only allows students to participate in sports with other students of the same biological sex designated at birth.
“I signed the bill to preserve women's athletics and ensure fair competition,” Lee tweeted after approving it. “This legislation responds to damaging federal policies that stand in opposition to the years of progress made under Title IX and I commend members of the General Assembly for their bipartisan work.”
According to ‘NPR’, the bill is the latest in what has been a growing dispute in statehouses across the country around the issue of trans rights. Already this year, state legislators have introduced at least 35 bills aimed at restricting trans girls and women from playing on girls' and women's sports teams, according to the LGBT+ advocacy group Freedom for All Americans. That's up from only two in 2019.
Supporters of the measures say they are necessary to ensure fair competition, but advocacy groups and critics in the LGBT+ community have denounced the measures as openly discriminatory.
The Human Rights Campaign calls the slew of legislation restricting the access of trans children to sports “unprecedented,” grouping it in with other bills introduced recently in states like South Carolina and Texas that would limit certain kinds of medical treatments for trans youth. The organisation tweeted that the Tennessee bill priorities attacks on trans students, and fails to reflect the values of the state of Tennessee.
“Transgender kids are kids,” the organisation said. “Excluding and discriminating against them does great harm to them and it weakens the communities in which these children feel excluded and marginalized.”
Read related myGwork articles here:
Mississippi And South Dakota Pass Bills Targeting Trans Youth
Mississippi Senate Votes To Ban Trans Athletes From Women's Sports
Montana Legislators Pass Two Bills Targeting Trans Youth
Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill To Ban Trans Women From Sports
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