So far, no NCAA backlash to Florida’s transgender sports legislation
TALLAHASSEE
One of the most controversial proposals making its way through the Florida Legislature hit a major snag this week — in South Dakota.
Legislation in that state to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports melted down Monday amid pressure from business groups. State and regional chambers of commerce argued that the bill, which critics say discriminates against transgender kids, might make athletic organizations, such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, take their business elsewhere. Gov. Kristi Noem said she feared a lawsuit from the NCAA.
So far, Florida’s bills haven’t had much pushback from influential business groups. When asked whether they had heard from business interests about the legislation,
House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, and a spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis said they had not. Both Sprowls and DeSantis support the legislation. (A spokeswoman for Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, did not respond to requests for comments.)
Much about the potential economic backlash from the bills, House Bill 1475 and Senate Bill 2012, remains unclear. A spokeswoman for the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which normally holds major sway over lawmakers, did not respond to multiple requests for comments about the bills.
A spokeswoman for the NCAA, Gail Dent, did not say whether the organization would pull events from Florida if the state enacts a ban on transgender participation in school-sponsored women and girls’ sports.
However, in a statement, Dent said the organization “continues to closely monitor state bills that impact transgender student-athlete participation.”
During a Senate Health Policy Committee meeting Wednesday — the international Transgender Day of Visibility — Democrats said Florida could face consequences from national organizations if Florida passes what they say is discriminatory legislation. The lawmakers cited the NCAA’s actions to pull events from North Carolina after that state passed a divisive “bathroom bill” in 2016.
“If we go down this route, I’ll put it out there: I hope the NCAA pulls out of Florida,” said Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-West Park.
Republicans supporters of the bill said they would not be cowed by the NCAA.
“I’m not going to be influenced by a financial threat,” said Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, the sponsor of the Senate bill.
A NATIONAL EFFORT
Republicans in Tallahassee — and dozens of other states — are pushing bills to exclude transgender athletes from school-sponsored women’s and girls’ sports. Parts of the measures being debated in Florida are identical to a bill that became law last year in Idaho. The governors of Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas have since signed similar bills into law, and other states seem poised to follow suit.
After her state’s legislation fell apart, South Dakota’s Noem issued a pair of executive orders aimed at addressing the issue and said she would call on lawmakers to reconvene in a special session this year.
Proponents of the Florida legislation argue the bills are an important way to keep the athletic playing field level. People who were assigned the male gender at birth have inherent physical advantages over people who were assigned the female gender, they say. Transgender individuals, who do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth, could skew women’s and girls’ competitions, proponents of the bill argue.
Both the Florida House and Senate bills apply to school sports played by students of all ages. The House bill would enact a blanket ban on transgender participation in women’s and girls’ sports. The Senate version would allow transgender athletes to participate, but only if they can show documentation proving their testosterone levels are below a certain level.
The Republican sponsors can point to no officially documented instance of a transgender athlete unfairly skewing competition in a women’s or girls’ sport in Florida. And major governing bodies, such as the NCAA and the Florida
High School Athletic Association, already have policies on transgender participation in sports.
Some transgender Floridians and equal-rights advocates have concluded that the bill is politically motivated and discriminatory. At the Senate Committee meeting Wednesday, several speakers urged lawmakers to vote against the bill.
“Was this bill based on research? Statistics that were done beforehand? Or was it presented [based] on prejudice?,” asked Elliott Bertrand, a transgender student from Flagler County.
It’s also unclear if the bills are legal under federal nondiscrimination law. Idaho’s bill was struck down by a federal judge last year, and President Joe Biden’s administration appears poised to oppose the efforts in court.
Still, supporters of the legislation in Florida say it’s needed. They point to Connecticut, where two transgender girls won several state track-and-field championships starting in 2017. Three girls in that state sued in federal court in 2019 to reverse the state’s rules regarding the inclusion of transgender athletes.
That suit was filed by the conservative Christian group the Alliance Defending Freedom — the same group that helped write the Idaho law on which parts of the Florida legislation are modeled.
FAST TRACKING?
SB 2012 and HB 1475 are moving quickly through the Legislature. Despite impassioned appeals from detractors of the bill, the Senate version cleared the Health Policy Committee Wednesday in a party-line vote. If the bill passes one more committee, it can be heard on the Senate floor.
The House version cleared its first committee in March. After that vote, House leaders stripped the legislation of one of its committee stops, meaning the bill only has to clear two committees before it can be heard on the House floor.