LGBTQ advocates, coaches and college athletes clash over SC bill to ban trans athletes
A South Carolina Republican lawmaker has renewed her effort to ban transgender women and girls from participating in middle school, high school and college women’s sports for the third time in the past two years.
State Rep. Ashley Trantham, R-Greenville, rallied supporters Thursday in support of her bill, dubbed the “Save Women’s Sports Act.”
Similar legislation was shot down by her Republican colleagues in the House Judiciary Committee twice last year. This year, the bill was moved to the House Education and Public Works Committee.
“The individuals that did not allow it to make it through Judiciary are very sorry about that, and they want another opportunity to vote on it,” said Trantham, who did name specific members that were apologetic. “I chose to keep it in (House) Education because I wanted it to have a fair chance, and it did not have that fair chance in Judiciary.”
A House Education subcommittee ran out of time Thursday to vote on the bill, but heard from proponents and concerned South Carolinians about the legislation’s potential impact. The committee plans to return to hear more testimony later this month.
“I am livid at these extreme lawmakers who think they can treat trans lives with such disregard,” Ivy Hill, the executive director of Gender Benders, an organization that provides support for LGBTQ individuals, said outside the State House Thursday with other queer advocates, who called the proposal “reckless and harmful”.
Bills faces tight deadline
The legislation is, however, running out of time.
Next week, the House will spend most of its time debating the budget, with a potential furlough week to follow.When they return, bills that haven’t passed face an April 7 crossover deadline to make it over to the other chamber.
Additionally, the full Education and Public Works committee is currently tied up with a number of bills seeking to ban critical race theory. Trantham, however, said she was promised her bill would advance.
“I have been assured by chair lady (Rita) Allison that we already have the time slot set aside,” Trantham said. “We’re going to be able to get this to the floor before crossover.”
Twenty-three states have considered measures to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports last year, on the argument that transgender women have a natural athletic advantage over their cisgendered counterparts.
Only nine states have enacted legislation last year, and governors in three more states vetoed it. Two more states have passed legislation since.
In South Carolina, it’s rare for transgender women and girls to try and participate in high school women’s sports, leaving opponents of the bill to argue that its a solution in search of a problem. While the South Carolina High School League has an application process for schools to allow a transgender student to participate in women’s sports, only four students have gone through the process since it was instituted in 2016.
Two students, both transgender girls, have been granted waivers.
“Women’s athletics have come so far in the past 50 years,” McGee Moody, the former University of South Carolina swimming and diving coach, said Thursday at a press conference for the legislation. “If this is allowed to take place, what we’ll see the standards for women’s athletics set back 100 years.”
Peyton Thompson, a volleyball player at Charleston Southern University, said allowing transgender women compete in women’s sports would take opportunities away from cisgender women.
“Even though I’m way taller than the average woman and above average athletically, I can simply not compete with the biological male in the same position as me,” she said.
Trantham said she believed local rules and rules from the bodies governing sports across the state were insufficient. She added that she doesn’t trust local districts to make a decision for themselves.
LGBTQ advocates vowed to continue fighting this and similar legislation.
“I know these legislators they may not see you, they even want to fight against you. They may want to try to stop who you are, stop you from living your life authentically,” said Sunshine Bella Goodman, a Black transgender woman and board member with the Alliance for Full Acceptance.
“But I’m here today as representation that you can live this life authentically, live an empowered life and live how you want to live your life free of judgment of others.”
Editor Maayan Schechter contributed to this story.
This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 12:43 PM.
