Nearly 80 Texas House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors of a bill that would place restrictions on transgender athletes at the collegiate level.
The measure already has the support of both Governor Geg Abbott (R) and Lieutenant Gover Dan Patrick (R).
House Bill 23, authored by State Representative Valoree Swanson R-Spring, now has the signatures of 77 Republican House members. Which gives the legislation a majority vote of support in the Texas House.
“The legislation would bar transgender men from competing on men’s college sports teams and transgender women from joining women’s college athletic teams,” the Texas Tribune reports.
The legislation would, however, permit trans athletes to join a men’s team if no female teams were available in that particular sport. Also, the bill would extend the current restrictions on trans athletes in the K-12 public schools to private schools since there is a significant amount of athletic competition between public and private schools.
The coalescing of Republican House support behind the measure comes after Governor Greg Abbott’s speech to a group of young conservatives in February, in which he vowed to ban males identifying as females from competing in college sports in Texas.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a news conference on October 17, 2022, in Beaumont, Texas. Abbott met with state and local law enforcement to discuss measures to address the growing problem of fentanyl in the state. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The bill, whose author Valoree Swanson calls important in protecting “fairness in women’s sports,” is expected to meet stiff opposition from Democrats and perhaps even a few Republicans during the remaining three months of the legislative session.
U.S. Rep. Valoree Swanson (R-TX) speaks to media members in the Texas Capitol on July 13, 2021, in Austin, Texas. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)
However, with majority support in the House and the governor and lieutenant governor fully on board, it’s reasonable to predict that the bill’s core purpose of barring biological males identifying as women from competing in women’s sports will become law at the college level in some form.