Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed legislation that bans transgender athletes from participation in girls’ high school or college sports on Wednesday.
The Save Women’s Sports Act passed the Oklahoma House by a 79-18 vote last week, and was subsequently approved by the state Senate.
“This bill…to us in Oklahoma is just common sense,” Stitt, a Republican who is running for reelection this year, said at the signing. “When it comes to sports and athletics, girls should compete against girls. Boys should compete against boys. And let’s be very clear: That’s all this bill says.”
The bill reads in part, “athletic teams designated for ‘females’, ‘women’ or ‘girls’ shall not be open to students of the male sex.”
Opponents of the bill denounced the law as contrary to federal civil rights law.
“Ultimately, SB2 violates the United States Constitution and federal civil rights law, puts Oklahoma at risk of losing federal funding, and harms transgender youth, all to solve a problem that does not exist,” Tamya Cox-Toure, head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Oklahoma chapter, said in a statement.
With Stitt’s signature, Oklahoma becomes the thirteenth state to pass a ban on the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
On Friday, the Utah legislature passed a similar bill by overriding Governor Spencer Cox’s veto earlier last week. Cox, a Republican, said the Utah bill was disproportionate given that just four students out of roughly 75,000 student athletes in the state are transgender.
“Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships,” Cox wrote in a letter explaining his veto.
Indiana governor Eric Holcomb, also a Republican, vetoed similar legislation in his own state last week. Holcomb said the legislation could face lawsuits and that the authority governing Indiana high school athletics had not encountered “a single case of a male seeking to participate on a female team.”