Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs bill banning transgender students from collegiate athletics
Bill provides avenue for 'injunctive relief' against schools allowing trans athletes competing within their gender
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill Thursday that will ban transgender students from competing in athletics corresponding to their gender, expanding a similar ban on trans athletes in public schools enacted in 2021.
Per the Austin American-Statesman, Senate Bill 15 dictates that transgender women will be required to play on men’s teams and transgender men will have to play on women’s teams.
Abbott signed the bill at a ceremony while flanked by current and former female collegiate athletes while hailing it as a protection for women's sports.
Collegiate sports help young women thrive, learn valuable life skills, & achieve their dreams.
Allowing biological men to compete against them threatens this pathway for young women to succeed.
Today, I signed the Save Women's Sports Act to safeguard women's collegiate sports. pic.twitter.com/tDncfbHBbH— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 15, 2023
The law will reportedly create an avenue for "injunctive relief" against public higher education institutions and college sports teams in Texas that allow transgender athletes to compete against their own gender, and will prohibit retaliation against anyone who reports the violations. It also reportedly allows women to compete against men in college sports if no women's team is offered.
In the decades of female collegiate athletics across hundreds of universities and colleges, there are 36 known transgender athletes to have openly competed, according to Outsports. None of them competed in Texas after high school. The Statesman also previously asked every four-year institution in Texas if they ever had a transgender athlete compete, with every school reportedly saying they hadn't or not responding.
One of the most notable transgender athletes in the state was Mack Beggs, a trans man who was required by state officials to compete among girls while in high school before competing at Life University in Georgia. His comment on the law passed Thursday, via Fox 4:
"I think they are just scared. They're just trying to win political points and they're just trying to appease their people.
"I really don't think it's a choice. I think it's something you really feel deep inside. And, you know, people are taking advantage of the fact that we're now being open and we we've come to this point."
Senate Bill 15 is the latest in a long line of laws Texas has enacted affecting the LGBTQ+ community during Abbott's administration. Per the American Civil Liberties Union via The Hill, Texas' legislature has introduced at least 53 bills affecting the community in this session alone, the most of any state.
