The New Hampshire senate passed a bill this week that would bar transgender athletes in grades 5-12 from competing against the gender they identify as.
Supporters of the legislation said they wanted to protect girls from being injured by larger and stronger transgender athletes.
“When we talk about fairness and rights, we can’t cover every circumstance. And so in a very narrow way that I think to most of us is very clear, biological boys have an advantage over biological girls,” said Senate President Jeb Bradley, a Republican from Wolfeboro. “We’ll never be able to legislate total fairness. But what we can’t do is create rights for one at the expense of another.”
Meanwhile, Democrats who opposed the bill said it was based on fear mongering. Sen. Debra Altschiller, a Democrat from Stratham, said there are only five transgender girls in New Hampshire who are athletes.
“Those five girls are not a threat. They are the threatened,” she said. “While this gesture of protection may seem valiant, we say, ‘No thank you.’ If you really want to protect girls, protect the marginalized transgender girls.”
The passing of the bill comes a couple weeks after Arkansas governor Sarah Sanders signed an executive order in response to President Biden’s new Title IX regulations that added protections for transgender athletes. Sanders said she had been “appalled” by the “attack on common sense.”
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At least 20 states have approved a version of a blanket ban on transgender athletes playing on K-12 and collegiate sports teams statewide, but a Biden administration rule to forbid such outright bans is set to take effect this year after multiple delays and much pushback.
In New Hampshire, the Senate previously passed a bill that would have banned transgender girls from participating on sports teams at both the high school and college levels, but the House defeated it earlier this month.
Six states sued the Department of Education due to the overhaul of Title IX. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced Tuesday that they are leading the charge.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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