TALLAHASSEE \u2013 With Democrats decrying the \u201celeventh-hour\u201d move in April, the Florida House and Senate then revived and passed a controversial plan that would ban transgender female athletes from competing on high-school girls\u2019 and college women\u2019s sports teams.<\/p>\n
The House tucked the transgender athlete proposal into an education measure and sent the revamped bill to the Senate. The Senate signed off on the proposal in a 23-16 vote late Wednesday, with one Republican \u2013 Gayle Harrell of Stuart \u2013 crossing party lines to join Democrats in opposition to the bill.<\/p>\n
Under the measure on its way to Gov. Ron DeSantis, female students\u2019 eligibility for sports teams would be based on their \u201cbiological sex\u201d on birth certificates issued \u201cat or near the time of the student\u2019s birth.\u201d<\/p>\n
A stand-alone Senate bill aimed at preventing transgender athletes from competing on girls\u2019 and women\u2019s teams stalled last week. But the issue re-emerged Wednesday as an amendment to the education bill (SB 1028) and quickly passed.<\/p>\n
The transgender athlete issue has sparked some of the most fierce debates of the 2021 legislative session, with critics arguing that a ban would target youths who are already at risk for suicide, ostracizing and bullying.<\/p>\n
Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, said he has a transgender granddaughter who has faced numerous obstacles as she matured. He urged his colleagues to oppose the proposed ban Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to destroy the lives of those children and their futures. If they want to play, let them play,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need this. We thought it was dead. But obviously, some don\u2019t care. And we have to care.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Kelli Stargel, a Lakeland Republican who sponsored the stand-alone bill that stalled, defended the plan Wednesday, saying it is \u201ccommon knowledge\u201d that men are stronger than women.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not meant to be hurtful. It\u2019s not meant to be discriminating. It\u2019s not meant to attack any group,\u201d Stargel said. \u201cThis is not about that. This is about sports and having competitive advantage and having the ability to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep, Kaylee Tuck, a Lake Placid Republican who had sponsored a stand-alone House bill on the issue, offered the amendment Wednesday. The action came with just two days left in the 2021 legislative session.<\/p>\n
Stargel\u2019s previous proposal included an exception for \u201cpersons who transition from male to female\u201d if they meet certain conditions, such as specified testosterone levels. But she said Wednesday that such an approach was too complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided to go with the most simplistic, which is to say that women play on women\u2019s sports and men are playing on men\u2019s sports. I know it\u2019s unfortunate for the number of students who are transgender, but we\u2019re doing this so that women have the opportunity to participate, to get scholarships, to excel with other women of like strength and capability,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
The proposal drew immediate pushback from LGBTQ advocates.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepublican leadership is hellbent on harming transgender youth and kicking kids off of their soccer teams \u2013 and they\u2019ve resorted to making backroom deals to resurrect and pass this bigoted bill in the final hours of legislative session,\u201d Gina Duncan, director of transgender equality for the non-profit organization Equality Florida, said in a statement Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
The bill also includes a provision that would allow \u201cany student who is deprived of an athletic opportunity or suffers any direct or indirect harm\u201d as a result of a violation of the transgender athlete ban to have a private cause of action \u201cfor injunctive relief, damages, and any other relief available under law\u201d against a school or public postsecondary institution.<\/p>\n
Florida is among several states where Republican lawmakers have considered similar legislation. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed a similar bill into law on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Critics of a ban argued that, if enacted, Florida could lose out on lucrative collegiate championship games.<\/p>\n
The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the main governing body for college sports, released a statement this month about its affiliation with states considering legislation about transgender student-athlete participation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,\u201d the statement said in part.<\/p>\n
Tuck\u2019s original proposal would have based eligibility on a student\u2019s \u201cbiological sex\u201d \u2013 a disputed term that refers to the sex assigned at birth \u2013 and included a dispute process to challenge a student\u2019s eligibility.<\/p>\n
Tuck noted Wednesday that the birth certificate is part of a \u201cpre-eligibility\u201d check conducted by the Florida High School Athletic Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no longer a dispute process (in the amendment). So, the birth certificate is already required in the pre-eligibility check to the FHSAA so there\u2019s not going to be the ability for another student to challenge the biological sex,\u201d she said, calling her amendment a \u201ccompromise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Transgender athlete bill passes, heads to DeSantis TALLAHASSEE \u2013 With Democrats decrying the \u201celeventh-hour\u201d move in April, the Florida House and Senate then revived and passed a controversial plan that would ban transgender female athletes from competing on high-school girls\u2019 and college women\u2019s sports teams. The House tucked the transgender athlete proposal into an education Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[505,997],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2553,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552\/revisions\/2553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}