On Thursday, the Arizona House passed a bill, SB1165, sponsored by Sen. Nancy Barto, which prohibits transgender women from competing in K-12 and collegiate women’s sports.
Dubbed the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” the bill passed along party lines, but not before House members sparred in floor debate.
Some of the most thought-provoking testimony came from Rep. John Kavanagh, who wanted to correct some of what he described as the “most egregious, erroneous statements made on the floor today.”
“This bill allows everybody to participate in sports,” explained Kavanagh. “It simply says that you have to go on the team that aligns with your biological gender because – quite frankly – puberty conveys significant physical advantages on males and I think it’s very unfair to make biological female athletes compete at that disadvantage. It recently came to light in the NCAA swimming area, and I think that those biological females have been cheated and robbed of a lifetime of effort and that is a tragedy.”
“The second erroneous statement that I feel compelled to talk about is that school sports aren’t about competition,” explained Kavanagh. “Clearly there are many good things that come out of school sports besides competition – it’s fun, it’s physical fitness, it’s healthy, but competition is one of the major things about school sports. And anybody who does think that might ask themselves why do they keep the score if that’s not the case?”
In earlier testimony, Barto stated that SB1165, “protects opportunities for women and girls in athletics by ensuring them a level playing field. That’s the goal of the bill. Ignoring biological realities hurts girls and women, who should not be forced to compete against men playing on women’s sports teams. This bill prohibits biological males from playing on girls and women’s scholastic sports teams. this bill applies to every interscholastic or intramural athletic team or sport that is sponsored by a public school it includes private cause of action for any student that’s denied an athletic opportunity or otherwise harmed by a school that violates this law. It also provides a cause of action for a student suffering retaliation or a school suffering harm for following the law.”