Photo courtesy of Flickr.
By Victoria Faulkner ’25
Staff Writer
Content warning: this article discusses transphobia.
The Texas State House and Senate approved a bill restricting transgender student athletes from K-12 sports, following House sessions on Thursday, Oct. 14, and Senate sessions on Friday, Oct. 15. Filed by Representative Valoree Swanson in September 2021, House Bill 25 aims to “[require] public school students to compete in interscholastic athletic competitions based on biological sex.” The bill passed through the house 76-54, with one abstained vote.
House Bill 25 is the fourth piece of legislation introduced this year that concerns transgender children in Texas. Prior legislative motions recorded by the Texas Legislature included multiple bills akin to failed House Bill 1399, which aimed to specifically restrict insurance coverage of transgender healthcare procedures. House Bill 25 does not target medical care, but requires the legal affirmation of the sex listed on the child’s birth certificate to determine which sports team they’re allowed to play on.
The Texas Tribune reported that the University Interscholastic League governs all public school sports in Texas and already requires that an athlete’s gender be determined by birth-certificate sex, not gender identity. However, the UIL has previously allowed a student whose birth certificate has been changed to reflect their gender identity to play on their preferred team. The new legislation will force UIL to only allow birth certificate exceptions based on clerical error. The UIL itself has since clarified that the process for checking student birth certificates is down to the student’s school and district, and thus not under their jurisdiction. The onus being on schools and districts allows for a relatively easy transition to HB-25 policy, and, as the parents of some transgender students have argued, immediately decreases the quality of life for transgender student athletes and schoolchildren alike.
In collaboration with the Human Rights Campaign, two transgender youths have made video pieces speaking out against this legislation. Texas resident Adelyn, who is 12 years old, said that transgender students and people face “many misconceptions that we are bad people or that we are abominations or that we are sick in the head.” Another transgender student, 11-year-old Libby Gonzales, stated, “We’re just normal kids that want normal lives. But they won’t stop trying to keep us from the things that every other kid has.”
The Legal Director for the HRC, Sarah Warbelow, testified before the Senate committee earlier this month, stating that “There simply is no problem posed by inclusive sports programs … the argument that transgender girls will take over sports relies on harmful, sexist stereotypes that are reinforced by the misinformation spread by opponents of equality for transgender people.”
Lawmakers in Texas, and many other states with similar legislation, have focused on transgender girls with almost no attention paid to transgender boys. In Utah, lawmakers focused specifically on transgender girls out of the interest of “athletic fairness” in a similarly styled transgender sports bill to HB-25. Forbes reported a statement by Utah Senator Mitt Romney in a Senate committee hearing last January, saying, “[My granddaughters] shouldn’t be competing with people who are physiologically in an entirely different category.”
Swanson said on the Senate floor on Oct. 14 that “This is all about girls and protecting them in our UIL sports.” She further said that her legislative priorities lie with the interests of cisgender women’s place in sports in a Facebook Live the day prior. In that same live session, Swanson, some of her fellow Republican legislators and members of outside organizations spread the hashtag “#FairPlay” in reference to a supposed biological inequity currently being debated in scientific circles. This theory of inequity claims that transgender women, because of their assigned sex at birth, are naturally stronger, faster or simply physically larger than cisgender women — despite there being only a handful of scientific studies on the matter of transgender athletes, none of which have covered the topic of a potential biological advantage in K-12 sports. This idea of inequity lies at the heart of HB-25 and many other anti-transgender-athlete legislation pieces.
During the session on Thursday, Democratic House Representatives questioned HB-25’s purpose, specifically cautioning about its impact on transgender children and arguing that it fails to address legitimate problems in women’s sports in Texas. Representative Celia Israel stated on the house floor, “You’re causing more pain tonight. We hope the courts will protect us, but damage has been done.” The Thursday vote took place at the end of an eight-hour House session, following testimony from the LGBTQ Caucus that specifically focused on the mental and physical health impact HB-25 may have on transgender athletes.
A senior policy advisor with the conservative organization Texas Values, Mary Elizabeth Castle, has referenced Title IX as reason to uphold HB-25 multiple times — including in a statement from last Thursday, prior to the Senate voting. According to the Texas Values blog, Castle said, “We now urge the Senate to pass it quickly and for this bill to be signed into law to protect girls’ Title IX rights to play on a level playing field in sports.” References to Title IX policies have become relatively common from Texas Republicans as reason to uphold HB-25, though many LGBTQ+ organizations argue Title IX is irrelevant to transgender student athletes.
Adri Perez, policy and advocacy strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, stated in a Texas ACLU press release that “This cruel bill targets an already vulnerable population, who simply want to participate in school athletics as their authentic selves. Lawmakers insist on attacking children, and forcing trans youth to fight for their own relevance by testifying at the Capitol — when they should just be kids enjoying school.” LGBTQ Nation reported that Perez said, “Texans will hold lawmakers accountable for their cruelty.”