On Friday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a transgender sports bill into law that requires students to prove their biological sex at birth in order to compete in middle and high school sports.
“A student’s gender for purposes of participation in a public middle school or high school interscholastic athletic activity or event be determined by the student’s sex at the time of the student’s birth, as indicated on the student’s original birth certificate,” the bill states.
According to the bill, students are required to show proof of their gender at the time of birth, provided that the birth certificate doesn’t specify the gender.
Moreover, the bill does not apply to students in kindergarten up to the 4th grade.
“I signed the bill to preserve women’s athletics and ensure fair competition,” Governor Lee tweeted after signing the bill. “This legislation responds to damaging federal policies that stand in opposition to the years of progress made under Title IX and I commend members of the General Assembly for their bipartisan work.”
A similar bill was also signed last Thursday when Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, and earlier this month, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves also signed a similar bill into law.
Critics say that the newly signed Tennessee bill is plain “discriminatory.” Requiring students to play sports based on their birth certificate’s gender identification and only compete against other athletes of the same biological sex is a clear sign of bigotry.
Alphonso David, President of the Human Rights campaign expressed his disappointment in a statement.
”Governor Lee’s rush to sign this discriminatory anti-transgender bill is, unfortunately, no surprise given how Tennessee’s elected leaders have aggressively pushed a ‘Slate of Hate’ against LGBTQ people for the last several years,” David said.
“This bill legislates against a problem that simply doesn’t exist and targets transgender kids who are trying to navigate their adolescence,” David continued.
“Transgender kids are kids. Excluding and discriminating against them does great harm to them and it weakens the communities in which these children feel excluded and marginalized.”