On Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation into law that bans so-called transgender females — males that either identify as female or are surgically altered to look like females — from competing against biological females in high-school and college sports in the state. The governor signed the bill during an event at Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville.
The “Fairness in Womens Sports Act” was a part of S.B. 1028, an education bill. It requires that athletic teams or sports sponsored by educational institutions in Florida be designated on basis of students’ biological sex. The bill also prohibits athletic teams or sports designated for female students to be open to male students.
“We believe in the State of Florida [in] protecting the fairness and the integrity of women’s athletics,” DeSantis declared.
“In Florida, girls are going to play girls’ sports and boys are going to play boys’ sports,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to make sure that that’s the reality.”
The law will restrict female athletics in Florida to biological females, as assigned at birth. So-called transgender females (boys who claim to be girls) will not be allowed to participate in athletic competitions designated for females.
“We’re going to go based off biology, not based off ideology when we’re doing sports,” DeSantis said.
The new law gives female athletes who have been victimized by having to compete against biological males the right to seek civil remedies. Likewise, institutions who have been harmed by violations of the law will also be able to seek civil remedies. Also, any student subjected to retaliation for reporting a violation of the law will also be able to seek a civil remedy.
As part of the event, DeSantis showed video of a Connecticut high-school track and field event in which a biological male claiming to be a female clearly dominated the field of girls he was running against. One of those girls was Selina Soule, who was denied a chance to compete in the New England Track and Field Regionals in 2018 when two male athletes, who identified as female, finished ahead of her in a preliminary event.
“In 2017 Connecticut began allowing two male athletes who self-identified as girls to compete in girls sports. During all four years of high school I was forced to compete against them even though they were bigger, stronger and faster than me because they were male,” Soule explained.
“I missed advancing to the next level of competition in the fifty-five meter dash by just two spots. Two spots that were taken by biological males,” Soule said. “It was frustrating, heart-breaking and demoralizing to be sidelined in my own sport.”
Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual activist group, has already said that they plan to challenge the new law in court.
“[We] are going to challenge this law,” said Alphonso David, the group’s president. “We are going to celebrate pride. The naysayers are going to lose this battle. They have fought us for decades and they have lost and they will continue to lose.”
Opponents of the legislation were outraged that the governor chose to sign the legislation on June 1 — the first day of so-called LGBTQ Pride Month.
“Apalling,” wrote state Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), who bills himself as Florida’s first LGBTQ Latinx legislator. “First day of LGBTQ Pride Month and Gov. Ron DeSantis signs SB 1028 which bans trans kids from school sports. FSHAA has allowed trans kids to participate in FL since 2013 with ZERO problems. This fuels transphobia and puts vulnerable kids at risk for no reason.”
In response to a question about whether DeSantis was “sending a message” by signing the legislation at the beginning of “pride month,” the governor answered, “It’s not a message to anything other than saying we’re going to protect fairness in women’s sports.”
In a statement, the Florida Senate Democrat Caucus had this to say: “By folding the transgender ban into the charter school legislation, Republicans in Tallahassee rejected both science and reason, openly attacking vulnerable LGBTQ+ children without a single shred of evidence that a problem even exists.”
But even if that’s been true in Florida, Selina Soule’s story in Connecticut proves that a potential problem certainly does exist — especially if you’re a young female athlete. And it’s absurd to claim that the state’s Republicans are rejecting science when the Democrats and LGBTQ activists actively choose to reject the basic biological truth that boys and girls are built differently.
