Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee said transgender athletes competing in women’s sports will have undesirable consequences for biological women.
“I do believe that transgenders participating in women’s sports will destroy women’s sports,” Lee said on Wednesday. “It will ruin the opportunity for girls to earn scholarships. It will put a glass ceiling back over women that hasn’t been there in some time. I think it’s bad for women and for women’s sports.”
The governor’s remarks follow a bill circulating in his state that would mandate school athletes prove their sex matches their birth certificate in order to compete. The legislation coincides with an executive order from President Biden, signed on his first day in office, titled Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation, which includes a provision that “children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.”
Opponents of the bill suggest it may indicate that transgender women, who were male at birth, may be eligible to compete in women’s-only sports throughout the nation, bringing with them a physical advantage.
“On day 1, Biden unilaterally eviscerates women’s sports,” said Abigail Shrier, an outspoken critic of transgender inclusion in women’s sports and author of IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. “Any educational institution that receives federal funding must admit biologically-male athletes to women’s teams, women’s scholarships, etc. A new glass ceiling was just placed over girls.”
Advocates for transgender rights slammed the governor for his comments.
“Governor Lee has no idea what he’s talking about,” Human Rights Campaign Deputy National Campaign Director Hope Jackson said in a statement. “We’d love to engage with Governor Lee if he can actually name a time when a transgender athlete in Tennessee ‘stole’ a scholarship from a cisgender athlete.”
The Washington Examiner conducted interviews with numerous high school athletes, many of whom feared for their future amid easing restrictions on transgender participation in sports.
“It was very frustrating and difficult knowing the outcome of the race before you even step on the line,” said Selina Soule, a Division I track athlete at the College of Charleston, as she recounted her experience of losing a competitive race to two biologically male runners. “That’s not how it should be in sports. You hope to win, not already knowing the outcome before the meet even comes. It wasn’t only me who felt dispirited. Other girls felt the same.”
Biden’s order, one of 17 he signed during his first steps into the Oval Office, follows mandates from the NCAA that all member schools must comply with transgender inclusion policies in sports.
“Concern about creating an ‘unfair competitive advantage’ on sex-separated teams is one of the most often cited reasons for resistance to the participation of transgender student-athletes,” the NCAA wrote in a 2011 handbook.
“These concerns are based on three assumptions: one, that transgender women are not ‘real’ women and therefore not deserving of an equal competitive opportunity; two, that being born with a male body automatically gives a transgender woman an unfair advantage when competing against non-transgender women; and three, that men might be tempted to pretend to be transgender in order to compete in competition with women.”
“These assumptions are not well founded.”
Bills to separate transgender athletes from their biological counterparts have advanced in North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Minnesota, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, and other states.
