Texas bill on girls athletics has NCAA concerned

Amid talk of boycotts and corporate criticism stirred by election bills moving through the Texas Legislature, major resistance is shaping up to another top priority of Republican state lawmakers.

With the Texas Senate set to debate a bill to ban transgender girls from competing in girls interscholastic sports, the NCAA has warned that it is watching the legislation. NCAA policies allow transgender athletes to participate without limitation.

“The NCAA continues to closely monitor state bills that impact transgender student-athlete participation,” NCAA officials said in a statement to Hearst Newspapers. “The NCAA believes in fair and respectful student-athlete participation at all levels of sport.”

The NCAA board of governors Monday released another statement in support of transgender athletes that stresses sites of NCAA championships can be affected by what the association views as discriminatory policies.

“When 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. We will continue to closely monitor these situations to determine whether NCAA championships can be conducted in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants.”

The stakes are high for Texas, because the NCAA has major financial commitments in the state. The men’s basketball Final Four is scheduled to be held in Houston in 2023 and in San Antonio in 2025. Dallas hosts the women’s Final

Four in 2023, and the College Football Championship is set for Houston in 2024.

In 2017, studies suggested Texas could lose nearly $250 million if the Final Four had been taken away then. With three Final Fours and the football championship, Texas would be looking at more than $1 billion in potential economic impact.

The NCAA’S statements about the legislation echo warnings that led South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to back away from that state’s transgender sports bill, while warning of an unwinnable showdown with the college sports association.

Senate Bill 29, sponsored by Sen. Charles Perry, R-lubbock, would ban a student from participating in a sport “opposite to the student’s biological sex as determined at the student’s birth.”

Perry said the bill is about safety and fairness for female athletes, and he worries about them facing a competitive disadvantage.

“There has been a steady increase in the number of biologically born males competing in female sports,” he said.

However, the University Interscholastic League, which sets rules for Texas high school and middle school sports, says it already has rules that prevent biological males from competing in girls’ sports.

Critics of the legislation say it’s part of a wave of bills around the nation that are not only discriminatory against transgender children, but dangerous to them.

“This is a moment of national crisis where the rights and the very existence of transgender young people are under attack,” said Alphonso David, president of Human Rights Campaign, a national group that fights violence, discrimination and fear of LGBTQ people. “Like the bathroom bills and the bills targeting marriage equality before them, these bills are nothing more than a coordinated effort by ANTI-LGBTQ extremists spreading fear and misinformation about transgender people in order to score cheap political points.”

On the other hand, Save Women’s Sports, a national group that advocates for barring transgender girls from girls’ sports, says its effort is about “protecting female sports.”

“Women and girls deserve the rights that generations of women fought hard for them to obtain,” said the group’s founder, Beth Stelzer. “When we ignore biology and science in sports, women and girls lose.”

Mississippi and Arkansas have passed legislation Stelzer’s group is championing in dozens of other states, including Texas.

Priority for Patrick

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate, has made SB 29 one of his priority bills and has hinted at the opposition it will face. After American Airlines came out in opposition to a Senate bill that would cut early voting hours in some major Texas cities, Patrick slammed the company and reminded people that American also opposed a 2017 bill that similarly aimed to ban transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports.

“By the way, this is the same American Airlines that in 2017 led the fight to try to force us to allow boys to play girls’ sports in Texas and take away their scholarships,” Patrick said in a statement April 1. “They are probably still fighting for that today, and it is likely they have not read Senate Bill 29 either.”

In 2017, Patrick was a driving force behind the so-called bathroom bill, which would have barred school districts from allowing transgender girls to use bathrooms and locker rooms that do not correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. That bill faced opposition from dozens of Texas companies, some of which threatened to boycott Texas. While the bill passed the Senate, the Texas House declined to advance it.

The NCAA has been a notable voice against anti-transgender legislation. In 2017, it pulled major sporting events out of North Carolina after a version of the bathroom bill passed there. Eventually, North Carolina lawmakers amended the legislation to end the boycott. A year earlier, Indiana was the target of threats based on the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The NCAA joined in that effort, getting the legislation changed to assure people could not be discriminated against based on “race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or United States military service.”

“The NCAA believes diversity and inclusion improve the learning environment, and it encourages its member colleges and universities to support the well-being of all student-athletes,” the NCAA said in its statement about Texas’ transgender legislation.

Further isolation

Sen. Perry’s bill has cleared the Senate’s State Affairs Committee and can be brought up for debate whenever Patrick chooses. In the House, similar legislation, House Bill 4042, is still in committee.

Transgender advocacy groups say the legislation could further isolate transgender children who already are subject to bullying and exclusion.

Napheesa Collier, a forward for the WNBA’S Minnesota Lynx, has joined transgender groups in calling for state governments to back off anti-transgender legislation for the sake of the children trying to find a place where they might fit in better.

“Transgender inclusion is so crucial for the health, safety and well-being of transgender kids who are already at a higher risk of anxiety, depression and suicide,” she said in a call with reporters.

Collier has joined with others trying to push the NCAA to remove events from states that enact them.

It was that concern that made Noem oppose a similar anti-transgender bill in South Dakota.

“If South Dakota passes a law that’s against their policy, they will likely take punitive action against us,” Noem said last month. “That means they can pull their tournaments from the state of South Dakota, they could pull their home games, they could even prevent our athletes from playing in their league.”

The NCAA never issued a public threat to do so.