Though the Louisiana legislative session doesnt begin until Monday, a bill that would mandate transgender student athletes participate in team sports corresponding to their sex assigned at birth, rather than their gender identity, is already garnering attention.

The bill by Rep. Beryl Amedee, a Houma Republican, would apply to sports teams at Louisiana public schools and private schools that receive public funds such as through voucher programs from the elementary school level through the collegiate level. A similar bill has also been pre-filed by Sen. Beth Mizell, a Franklinton Republican.

Amedee said the bill would not ban transgender athletes from sports but rather level the playing field for athletes assigned female at birth because transgender females are generally, stereotypically speaking, at an advantage over biological females. She said that on average men have greater average lung volume, larger bones and muscles than women.

An athlete who truly wants to compete because of the love of the sport is going to want to compete where the competition is fair, she said, and the competition is fair when it's based appropriately on your makeup. If you are biologically male, but you compete against the females, how can you ever be assured that your win is truly a win?

Opponents of the law say there are many different body types within sexes and argue that a law shouldnt be made based on generalizations.

Certainly, that does not apply across the board, and that I think is what makes this such an unfair and ridiculous piece of legislation, said Brandon Robb, a lawyer at a New Orleans law firm that works with many LGBT clients. You could take individuals, even people who were female from birth and still are biologically female Some women are going to be taller, stronger than other women.

It would exclude people based on a broad generalization, he continued. Gender discrimination based on that sort of broad generalization, I think is going to be really suspect to a court of law that might be reviewing it (in the future).

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While Amedee said she has not heard of specific situations in Louisiana where transgender female athletes were systematically outperforming those assigned female at birth, she said it was important to get ahead of the issue.

I think if we don't take care of this, if this becomes an issue in Louisiana where we have a lot of athletic competitions where we have biological females competing against transgender females and the competition becomes unfair, as it has in other places in this country, then what we're going to see is the demise of women's sports, she said. We'll see women just not bothering, and to me, that's a step backwards.

More than a dozen other states, including Ohio, Idaho and Missouri, have filed similar bills in recent months regarding transgender students participation in sports, legislation often dubbed the Save Womens Sports Act by supporters.

Many legislators who have brought these bills forward refer to a Connecticut case, in which three high school girls are suing over the participation of two transgender athletes in track and field events, saying they have an unfair competitive advantage. The plaintiffs in that case are being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative nonprofit.

But Dylan Waguespack of Louisiana Trans Advocates said the recent crop of bills appearing in state legislatures are evidence that the bills are being pushed by national organizations opposed to LGBT rights.

This legislation is not homegrown, he said. These bills are identical to bills filed in Arizona, and they're very, very similar to bills filed in 15 other states. It kind of actually exposes these bills for what they are, which is imported discriminatory legislation from some fringe national extremist groups.

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Currently, Louisiana policies for transgender peoples participation in sports varies by age. According to Waguespack, schools are left to decide policies for elementary school children. At the high school level, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) guidelines state that a student-athlete shall compete in the gender of their birth certificate unless they have undergone sex reassignment.

The high school student must then go before a committee who is instructed to allow them to compete on a team matching their gender identity if they have had sex reassignment surgery before puberty. If they have had sex reassignment surgery after puberty, the committee would have to verify whether the person had completed surgical anatomical changes, updated all official government documents and undergone hormone therapy.

Even then, LHSAA states, athletic eligibility in the reassigned gender can begin no sooner than two years after all surgical and anatomical changes have been completed.

Waguespack said these standards are so hard to meet that they amount to a de facto ban on transgender high school students playing on school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.

I think even folks who aren't living with these issues day to day like I am would know those are not things that are happening to high school students, he said. We wouldn't even recommend that high school students have permanent surgical care. That's something that you do as an adult.

There are no health care providers that would ever provide that kind of care for a minor," he added.

And while, the LHSAA policies are listed as guidelines on their website, Waguespack said the organization does enforce them. A Louisiana high school that allows a transgender person to compete according to their gender identity could potentially have their record disputed and get disqualified for fielding an ineligible player.

LHSAA has made the determination in recent history, like within this past year, that a student who's transgender who meets like all of the things we would expect a high school student to meet is not eligible, he said.

At the college level, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) allows transgender women to compete on womens teams if they have completed a year of testosterone suppression treatment, regardless of what their testosterone levels are and if they. Transgender men can compete without medically transitioning.

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GLSEN (formerly the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) lists Louisiana as one of 17 states whose state athletic association has a policy that discriminates against transgender athletes.

Transathlete.com, which monitors policies for across the country, also classified Louisianas K-12 policies as discriminatory but did list Louisiana State University as one of 15 colleges with trans-inclusive intramural athletic policies.

The bills by Amedee and Mizell would restrict transgender athletes participation even further by implementing a policy that mandates student athletes at all levels play on teams that correspond with their sex assigned at birth with no exceptions.

The bill states that if a dispute arises as to the biological sex of a student who participates or desires to participate on a female, girls', or women's school athletic team, a physicians signed statement would determine the students sex assigned at birth.

That determination would be based on the student's internal and external reproductive anatomy, the student's normal endogenously produced levels of testosterone and an analysis of the student's genetic makeup.

It is unclear how such an examination would work in practice. Amedee said physicians who deal with genetics would need to determine a students genetic makeup as outlined in the bill. But she was unsure if a regular primary care physician would be able to provide this service.

We'd have to ask a doctor these things, she said.

Waguespack said not only did he think the examinations and tests outlined in the law would be a massive overreach into the privacy of young people, but that he also was concerned about who would be able to question someones gender and therefore require them to get a physicians statement.

It also sets up this really scary Orwellian system for disputing someone's gender, Waguespack said. It doesn't specify who can dispute someone's gender. It leaves it pretty open to suggest that anyone could.

Eighteen Louisiana equality organizations, including the ACLU of Louisiana, Women With a Vision and Lift Louisiana, recently signed a letter against both bills, calling them a misguided effort to offer the state as a means of enforcing gender norms.

Robb said he is working with the Louisiana LGBT rights organization Forum for Equality to ensure the bill does not pass. Should the bill become law, though, he sees a court challenge as probably inevitable."

These are the sort of laws that in other states where they've passed these things or other forms of discrimination, they've been challenged in court and often successfully."

Originally posted here:
This Louisiana bill would keep trans students from playing on teams matching their gender identity - NOLA.com

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