by Dave Williams | Oct 9, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia Board of Regents is asking two organizations that govern collegiate sports to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
Tuesday’s unanimous vote came two years after the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) voted to require students to participate in high school sports based on their gender at birth.
The controversy over transgender women taking part in women’s sports erupted during the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships held at Georgia Tech.
Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania, who had posted respectable but not spectacular times while swimming for the men’s team, emerged into the national spotlight while transitioning to female through hormone replacement therapy, winning the 500-meter freestyle event.
Five former elite-level college women swimmers who took part in those championships testified before a state Senate committee in August that being forced to compete against Thomas was unfair. They also said they were uncomfortable having to share a locker room with Thomas.
“Biologically female student-athletes could be put at a competitive disadvantage when student-athletes who are biologically male or who have undergone masculinizing hormone therapy compete in female athletic competitions,” read the second paragraph of the resolution the Board of Regents adopted Tuesday.
The resolution urges both the NCAA and the National Junior College Athletic Association to make their policies toward transgender women in sports consistent with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which already bans transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
The issue was among the most controversial the General Assembly took up in 2022. Lawmakers considered a bill to ban transgender athletes from participating on school sports teams that align with their gender identity rather than their gender at birth.
However, the legislature stopped short of an outright ban, voting instead to leave it up to the GHSA’s executive committee, which approved a ban that spring.
Now, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Georgia Senate, is vowing to revisit transgender women in sports during the 2025 legislative session with a bill that would ban them from participating in sports at Georgia’s public colleges.
“I want to thank the Board of Regents for taking action on an issue I have stressed as a priority and the Senate has led on in Georgia – protecting women’s sports,” Jones said following Tuesday’s vote. “The work female athletes put into competing should be protected at all cost, no matter the age. This action brings us one step closer toward achieving that ultimate goal.”
During the 2022 debate in the General Assembly, legislative Democrats, transgender students and their parents argued that banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ high school sports would discriminate against students who already suffer from prejudice. They cited above-average suicide rates among transgender teens.
by Dave Williams | Aug 27, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Five former elite-level college women swimmers Tuesday described losing to a transgender athlete in an unfair competition and the trauma they suffered sharing a locker room with Lia Thomas.
The five competed in the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships at Georgia Tech.
“Competing as a woman against Thomas was unfair,” Grace Countie, a 22-time All-American swimmer at the University of North Carolina and Olympic Trials semifinalist, told members of the Georgia Senate Special Committee on the Protection of Women’s Sports at its first meeting. “We have the right as women to have an equal playing field.”
Thomas, who posted respectable but not spectacular times while swimming for the University of Pennsylvania men’s team, emerged into the national spotlight while transitioning to female through hormone replacement therapy, winning an NCAA national championship at the women’s competition at Georgia Tech.
Amid widespread complaints about Thomas being allowed to compete as a woman, the General Assembly took up a bill during the 2022 legislative session to ban transgender athletes from participating on school sports teams that align with their gender identity rather than their gender at birth.
However, lawmakers stopped short of legislating such a ban and instead left the issue up to the Georgia High School Association’s executive committee, which approved a ban that spring.
“We ended up punting the matter to the Georgia High School Association,” said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the Senate’s presiding officer, who formed the committee. “We have the opportunity to correct the misgivings of the past. We should take that opportunity.”
The women who testified Tuesday described spending years of hard work and training to get to an elite level in swimming, only to have their chances to win a championship thwarted by Thomas’ entry into their events.
“It was clear to observers that Thomas only qualified because of the physical advantages he enjoyed as a man,” said Kylee Alons, a two-time NCAA champion and Olympic finalist who swam for North Carolina State University. “(But) they simply looked the other way.”
Several of the witnesses said they were traumatized when Thomas was allowed to change in the women’s locker room. Alons said she resorted to changing in a storage closet.
“I never felt more violated and betrayed,” said Kaitlyn Wheeler of the University of Kentucky.
The women’s testimony got some pushback at the end of Tuesday’s hearing from Cait Smith, director for LGBTQI+ policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. She said the swimming championships at Georgia Tech were an isolated incident.
Following the 2022 championship, World Aquatics, the governing body for international water sports, banned transgender women who have been through male puberty from competing in women’s races. As a result, Thomas was unable to participate in qualifying trials for the recently concluded Summer Olympics in Paris.
“You’re focused on one student who won one championship two years ago,” Smith told the committee.
But the women who testified Tuesday urged senators to enact a policy protecting women’s sports, rather than leaving the issue up to the high school sports association.
“Sports are a place for everyone,” Wheeler said. “But we must maintain fairness and safety by competing in the gender you’re born with.”
by Dave Williams | Sep 6, 2023 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A federal judge has lifted a preliminary injunction that was blocking a new state law limiting medical care for transgender minors in Georgia, allowing enforcement to resume.
U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty issued the injunction two weeks ago in a lawsuit filed by four Georgia families and a national organization of parents with transgender children, ruling the plaintiffs likely would succeed on the merits of the case.
But Geraghty changed course on Tuesday, citing a decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the day after her earlier ruling. The appellate court reversed an injunction that had been imposed in the Alabama case.
“It is undisputed that this court’s preliminary injunction order rests on legal grounds that have been squarely rejected by the panel in [Alabama],” Geraghty wrote in Tuesday’s decision. “This court’s injunction cannot stand on the bases articulated in the order.”
However, the judge rejected Georgia’s request that the preliminary injunction be quashed permanently. Instead, she stayed the injunction pending the final outcome of the Alabama case.
Georgia’s Republican-controlled General Assembly passed Senate Bill 140 in March, and Gov. Brian Kemp signed it the following day. It took effect July 1.
The legislation bans hormone replacement therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents.
During the debate on the bill, supporters argued the law would protect minors from making life-altering decisions at such a young age. Opponents maintained delaying hormone replacement therapy or surgery for transgender youths until after age 18 could pose mental health risks.
The lawsuit claims Senate Bill 140 violates transgender minors’ equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
by Dave Williams | Aug 23, 2023 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation banning teachers and other non-parental adults from talking about gender identity with minors without the consent of a parent or guardian drew a parade of opponents Wednesday, including religious conservatives.
Senate Bill 88, which was introduced during this year’s General Assembly session, would further isolate already vulnerable transgender youths, who commit suicide at higher rates than other young people, Jeff Graham, executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group Georgia Equality, testified during a hearing on the bill before the Senate Education & Youth Committee.
“This will only add to the stigma they face and make life more challenging and difficult,” Graham said.
Sen. Carden Summers, R-Cordele, the legislation’s chief sponsor, dismissed comparisons of the measure with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill Florida lawmakers passed last year.
“All we’re saying is if you’re going to talk about gender [identity] with a child under 16 years old, you need to talk to the parent or guardian,” Summers said. “It is not [a teacher’s] job to discuss gender with a child. That’s a job for a parent or guardian.”
Kate Hudson of Atlanta, founder of the non-profit organization Education Veritas, said a nationwide movement in the schools is actively encouraging students to consider changing the gender identities they were born with.
“It is an intentional effort to dismantle our society and brainwash our youth,” Hudson said. “Our children have a God-given right to an education free of this indoctrination.”
But the bill’s opponents said students cannot be indoctrinated to be something they are not and barring them from talking about these issues with teachers can only be harmful.
“If Georgia teachers aren’t able to interact with my child … my child will go to school isolated and afraid,” said Jordan Black, the Gwinnett County mother of a transgender student.
Some opponents also argued the legislature should be addressing more important education-related issues including overhauling the decades-old K-12 school funding formula and prioritizing the needs of schools in rural Georgia.
“There are other problems in our schools,” said Mason Goodwin of the grassroots organization Georgia Youth Justice Coalition. “We just got out of the pandemic. Why are we focusing on this?”
Religious conservatives who testified Wednesday expressed concern that the bill would apply to private schools as well as public schools.
Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth , a member of the committee, said the state shouldn’t be dictating to private schools.
“I don’t know that we have an interest in doing what this bill does,” he said.
The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a related bill this year limiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender children, voting along party lines. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction last week temporarily blocking enforcement of Senate Bill 140, an order the state is appealing.
by Dave Williams | Aug 22, 2023 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is asking a federal judge to reconsider a preliminary injunction issued late last week blocking enforcement of legislation limiting medical care for transgender minors.
A motion filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia cites a ruling the Atlanta-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued Monday lifting a preliminary injunction a federal court had imposed barring enforcement of similar legislation in Alabama.
“In its opinion, the Eleventh Circuit expressly addressed – and rejected – each of the core legal theories Plaintiffs here advanced in support of their motion for preliminary injunction,” Carr’s motion stated.
U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Geraghty ruled late Sunday that four Georgia families and a national organization of parents with transgender children likely would succeed on the merits of their challenge to a provision in Senate Bill 140 that bans hormone replacement therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents.
Geraghty declared that Georgia’s Senate Bill 140 violates transgender minors’ equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. If it stands, the preliminary injunction would prohibit the law from being enforced while the lawsuit moves forward.
The General Assembly’s Republican majorities passed SB140 last March, voting along party lines, Gov. Brian Kemp signed it two days later, and the measure took effect July 1.
Kemp and other supporters argued the law would protect minors from making life-altering decisions at such a young age.
“SB140 was … a good-faith effort to protect children from the irreversible, lifelong effects of experimental treatments with unproven benefits but well-documented risks to health and fertility,” Carr’s motion stated.
During the debate on the bill, legislative Democrats said delaying hormone replacement therapy or surgery for transgender youths until after age 18 could pose mental health risks. They cited higher-than-average suicide rates among transgender teens.
