The North Carolina Senate Higher Education Committee on Wednesday passed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which forbids males from participating in women’s sports.
The North Carolina bill would affect middle and high school sports as well as women’s sports in colleges and universities in the state, both public and private.
The Senate and House of Representatives had passed different versions of the bill, but the House version of the bill will now advance to the Senate floor. It includes “athletic teams designated for females, women, or girls” and would apply to all public high schools and middle schools, plus those private schools whose teams are members of interscholastic athletic organizations or play against teams affected by the bill. It applies to all college athletic teams in an “intercollegiate athletic program,” such as the NCAA.
At the committee meeting, Democratic Senator Natasha Marcus said that the bill will often impact cases such as a middle school student on puberty blockers, “living as a girl, using female names and pronouns, [who] just wants to play on the middle school team,” pointing to the infrequency of the situation. Republican Senator Vickie Sawyer said that she supported the bill in order “to protect women,” identifying 17 examples of “how women didn’t win in their respective sports” due to the participation of males.
Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer, submitted a statement to the committee saying, “Make no mistake about it, by allowing [transgender swimmer Lia] Thomas to displace female athletes – in the pool and on the podium – the NCAA and its member colleges intentionally discriminated on the basis of sex” by “allowing Thomas to displace female athletes.” She wrote, “I implore you to pass House Bill 574, the ‘Fairness in Women’s Sports Act’ that preserves women’s athletic athletic opportunities at all levels, including young women competing in college like me.”
Gaines has been outspoken about this issue in the past. When U.S. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked by a reported what the White House would say to a parent concerned about their daughter and her safety competing against a transgender student, she “called out” the reporter for deeming transgender kids “dangerous,” calling the question a “dangerous thing to say.”
In response, Gaines tweeted that Jean-Pierre’s comment sends a message to all women that their safety, privacy, fairness, equal opportunities, and dignity do not matter. Gaines noted in the Tweet that “when they said ‘inclusion,’” they “really mean exclusion.”
Currently, 22 states have already enacted similar legislation, and the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in April that would ban biological males from participating in women’s sports programs.
A poll commissioned by the NC Values and NC Faith & Freedom Coalition found that over 70 percent of North Carolina residents believe male athletes should not be allowed to play on female sports teams. A nationwide Gallup poll released on Monday also shows that 69 percent of Americans believe transgender athletes should play on teams that match their biological gender, a 7 percentage point increase from 2021.