A legislator in Missouri has introduced a bill that would force transgender high school athletes to compete as their biological sex.
Republican state Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin said that biological men who identify as women have an unfair advantage in sports at the state Senate Education Committee hearing on Tuesday.
“It is a known biological fact that males are born with categorically superior strength, speed, and endurance,” O’Laughlin said, going on to explain that the bill is intended to even the playing field for biological women.
“I started seeing in the news where, across the country, you had women who are being beaten by biologically born men in big competitions,” O’Laughlin said earlier this year. “And I thought, ‘I just don’t think people think that’s right.’”
The bill has gotten pushback from transgender advocates, including one student-athlete who identifies as male.
“Putting me on the girls activities won’t make me a girl,” said the athlete. “This bill will force me on the girls teams, where I end up beating every single girl on my high school cross-country team in every race, and I’d have placed 28th in the state as a freshman.”
Republican Missouri state Rep. Robert Ross introduced a similar bill earlier in February that would require student-athletes to play on teams based on their biological sex and bar female students from playing football with men.
