Mar 6

Mar 6 Transgender youth targeted in state bills regulating athletics By Dylan Thompson

Since 2020 there have been several state bills targeting LGBTQ+ individuals, especially the rights of transgender youth. These bills primarily come from conservative states. One prominent example is Missouri and House bills: MO HB170, MO HB183, and MO HB337. All three focus on transgender participation in sports recently underwent public hearings.

MO HB170, also called the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” separates sports in Missouri into male, female, and Coed categories. From there, the bill would require students who wished to play sports to sign an affidavit verifying the “biological sex of such student at birth.” Similarly, MO HB183 and MO HB337 calls for separating men and women in sports based on their biological sex at birth.

Missouri legislator Brian Seitz, the sponsor of HB170 and co-sponsor of HB183, feels that it’s necessary to “defend female athletics from being infiltrated and dominated by biological males.” Seitz contends the issue is fairness: “ignoring the competitive advantage that men have against women in many sports is to ignore biological reality.” Alex Maple, a witness in favor of this bill, stated that “No amount of testosterone suppression or other hormonal treatments can ever bridge the gap in the physical difference between men and women/boys and girls.”

Bills like these are dangerous to the transgender community. They alienate those people, preventing them from playing sports. Transgender men are forced to play women’s sports. The very thing that they claim they are protecting women from, unfair advantages based on biological sex, is happening through the refusal to allow transgender people from playing with people with whom they identify.

Dylan Thompson is a Political Science student at Utica University