TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After months of contentious debate, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed a bill banning transgender females from participating in women’s and girls’ scholastic sports.
At a bill-signing event at the Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, DeSantis touted the ban as a way to protect the integrity of women’s and girls’ sports. The provision he signed into law would prohibit an athlete from competing in school-sponsored girls’ and women’s sports if the athlete was not assigned the female gender at birth. Elementary school athletes are not included in the ban.
“In Florida, girls are going to play girls’ sports, and boys are going to play boys’ sports,” DeSantis said.
Detractors of the ban, including equal rights advocates and many transgender people, have argued the bill is an effort to score political points by further alienating transgender people.
Before DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1028 into law, major scholastic sports governing bodies — the Florida High School Athletic Association and the National Collegiate Athletic Association — already had policies in place governing the participation of transgender athletes.
Supporters of the effort to restrict transgender athlete participation have cited no examples of competitive issues in Florida. However, they have pointed to a high-profile Connecticut case, in which transgender girls won several track and field titles. Selina Soule, one of the athletes who sued to end Connecticut’s transgender inclusion policy, spoke at Tuesday’s bill signing.
Florida is the most populous to pass such a transgender athlete ban, but it’s not the first. Last year, Idaho became the first state to enact such a measure. This year, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi all followed suit.
If those states’ experiences are any indication, the fight over the controversial policy is likely not over. Lawyers for the nonprofit, nonpartisan American Civil Liberties Union have pledged to sue Tennessee officials. Idaho’s law is currently held up in federal lawsuits.
The transgender athlete ban had a bumpy ride through the Florida Legislature. At various points, the measure looked to have little chance to become law. But on the third-to-last day of the regular lawmaking session, legislators resurrected the policy by attaching it to SB 1028, a bill about charter schools.
At the time, equal rights advocates blasted what they said was a clandestine effort to discriminate.
“Instead of being open about their bigotry, they are negotiating the future of anti-LGBTQ discrimination in smoke-filled back rooms,” said Gina Duncan, a transgender woman and the director of transgender equality with the advocacy group Equality Florida, at the time of the bill’s passage.
Although the transgender provision will likely garner the most attention, there are other noteworthy provisions in the bill DeSantis signed on Tuesday.
For example, charter school supporters also will find a policy victory inside the 73-page measure.
The bill will allow public colleges and universities to authorize charters and enter into contracts for their operation, a move that Republicans in the Legislature have pushed for several years.
One of the main drivers of the bill, Rep. Stan McClain, R-Ocala, said creating more avenues to authorize charters will improve career training and “lead to economic security for our children.”
Ultimately, the policy change will make it easier to open charter schools beyond local school district sponsoring.
