Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed a bill into law that extends the state’s ban on transgender athletes playing in women’s sports from K-12 and now to college sports.
The state had already passed a law in 2021 that prevents boys claiming to be girls from playing K-12 girls’ sports. But the new law prevents college students from participating in girl’s sports under their “chosen” gender, even if they have had gender reassignment surgery, Fox News reports.
“Look, if you are a biological male, you are not going to be competing in women’s and girls’ sports in Alabama. It’s about fairness, plain and simple,” Ivey said after signing the bill into law.
“Forcing women to compete against biological men would reverse decades of progress that women have made for equal opportunity in athletics,” Bill sponsor Republican Rep. Susan DuBose said during the debate of the bill.
Transgender woman Lia Thomas (L) of the University of Pennsylvania stands on the podium after winning the 500-yard freestyle as other medalists (L-R) Emma Weyant, Erica Sullivan, and Brooke Forde pose for a photo at the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship on March 17, 2022, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
Dubose added, “No amount of hormone therapy can undo all those advantages” of being born a man.
Biden’s Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona recently announced an attempt to invalidate state laws such as those now in place in Alabama by reshaping Title IX’s definition of sex discrimination to include “gender identity,” a move that 25 governors objected to in a letter to the Dept. of Ed.
Cardona intends to use Biden’s powers to write new regulations to force states to the will of the radical LGBTQ lobby and to invalidate state laws by fiat.
US Vice President Kamala Harris (not pictured) and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona attend a panel discussion with nine outstanding scholars at Claflin University on September 20, 2022, in Orangeburg, South Carolina. (Colin Myers/Claflin University/HBCU via Getty Images)
“The proposed regulation would clarify Title IX’s application to such sex-related criteria and the obligation of schools and other recipients of Federal financial assistance from the Department (referred to below as “recipients” or “schools”) that adopt or apply such criteria to do so consistent with Title IX’s nondiscrimination mandate,” the regulation summary states.
The 25 Republican governors who wrote to Cardona told him they are “gravely concerned about the impact that the Department’s wholesale reinvention of Title IX’s terms would have on states’ ability to enforce their laws and policies as written.”
“Indeed, under threat of denying essential school funding, the Department’s proposed regulation would attempt to coerce compliance with an uncertain, fluid, and completely subjective standard that is based on a highly politicized gender ideology,” the letter reads. “Most troubling, the proposed regulation would turn the purpose of Title IX on its head and threaten the many achievements of women in athletics.”
Alabama is one of 20 states that now have laws that limit transgender athletes from participating in sports under their “chosen” gender.
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