A panel of Georgia senators says the state should require that girls’ and women’s sports played at public schools only allow student-athletes to join teams according to the gender listed on their birth certificate.
The Senate Special Committee on Protecting Women’s Sports adopted five recommendations during its final hearing Friday.
The panel recommended changing state law so student-athletes at public high schools and colleges must play on teams, dress, shower and use restrooms according to the gender on their birth certificate. The potential law would also apply to private institutions in games they play against those schools.
The panel also recommended that any change in the law include ways for people who feel they’ve been aggrieved to sue institutions. The state could also withhold funding from schools that violate the potential law.
State Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming, said while the recommendations will be worked out through the legislative process, one thing he expects is that Georgia schools participating in sports in other states will still be required to follow any regulations of transgender athletes.
“What we would hope is that we put these guardrails in place and then, ultimately, we have people competing in sports on the gender they were assigned at birth, and that nobody has to sue anybody,” he said.
In addition, the panel is urging the Legislature to adopt additional rules to “ensure that the regulation of sports is based on promoting and preserving competitive fairness and protecting student safety.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Jeff Graham, executive director of the LGBTQ+ rights group Georgia Equality, said he was saddened but not surprised by the committee’s recommendations.
“We are anticipating that this is the beginning of another rough legislative session for the LGBT community very broadly, but very, very specifically to transgender Georgians,” he said. “Here in Georgia, there is also a great sense of resilience, specifically within the transgender community, of folks that are in a position to speak out, wanting to speak out like never before, wanting to share their stories, wanting the world to see their humanity.”
Georgia has been among the conservative states that have recently passed or proposed laws regulating transgender children and adults.
In 2023, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law banning doctors from giving certain medical treatments to transgender children.
The year before, Republican leadership in the House and Senate compromised on the issue of transgender sports. It tasked athletic associations with investigating whether there was a need to ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams.
The Georgia High School Association quickly voted to require athletes to compete based on their biological sex, effectively banning transgender athletes from participating based on gender identification.
The state Senate panel on Friday recommended repealing the 2022 law that gave sports associations control of regulating transgender athletes.
“This is an issue that should be decided by the people’s elected representatives,” the recommendations state.
Both the lawmakers who support the effort and the activists who oppose it say they are not aware of any transgender athletes playing sports in Georgia.
The panel of six Republicans and two Democrats spent more than seven hours across three meetings listening to testimony in recent months. They ultimately recommended changes that closely resemble legislation Republican senators tried to pass in the waning days of session earlier this year. Neither of the two Democrats on the panel — Sens. Sheikh Rahman of Lawrenceville and Freddie Powell Sims of Dawson — participated in Friday’s meeting.
“I think with the requirement that athletes participate — recognizing the biological differences that result in the immutable advantages for men in particular — that in an effort to have fairness, this recommendation goes in one direction,” Dolezal said. “It is recognizing that we should not have men playing in female sports because we recognize that men are the ones to have any biological advantages.”
With encouragement from Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Education and Youth Chair Clint Dixon, a Buford Republican, in March tried to push through a bill containing a host of GOP red-meat issues, which included banning transgender athletes from playing sports or using restrooms that align with their gender identity. It passed the Senate but stalled in the House.
In the past, the House has been cool to taking up transgender legislation. But that is expected to change in the coming legislative session. Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican from Newington, recently said there is “nothing more important” than passing a law to “protect the integrity and fairness of girls’ sports at every level here in Georgia” next year.
Graham invoked former Speaker David Ralston, a Republican from Blue Ridge who died two years ago, and his desire to protect transgender children from discrimination.
“I am carrying around the quote from the late Speaker David Ralston, when the legislation passed two years ago that gave the Georgia High School Association the authority to set rules and regulations, that he did not want to see transgender kids targeted,” Graham said. “I wish that the levelheaded compassion of Speaker Ralston be put back into this legislative session in 2025.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
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