COLOMBIA – While it is rare for transgender athletes to compete on South Carolina elementary and high school sports teams – this has happened twice in the past five years – the opportunity for future competitors to have that chance may be diminishing.
Hours of emotional debate resumed on March 3 over a proposal to limit participation in these teams to a person’s biological gender, creating an unnecessary battle for civil rights if the measure became law, opponents warned.
Still, a House Judiciary subcommittee voted 3-1 to pass the “Save Sports for Women Act,” legislation sponsored by state deputy Ashley Trantham, a Republican Pelzer. The legislation adds South Carolina to 20 other states that have introduced similar laws, according to the Center for American Progress.
“South Carolina has a proud history of cultivating talented and successful female athletes. For years, we have witnessed our daughters chase their dreams, ”State Representative Pelzer told a panel of the Chamber during the project’s first hearing on February 23.
“Unfortunately, the next generation of female athletes in South Carolina may not have a chance to excel in these same sports,” she said. “We must act to restore a level playing field for women athletes.”
The Trantham bill requires sports teams to allow competitors based only on their biological sex and authorizes legal actions for people who are kept off a team based on someone else’s gender identity.
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Among those who spoke out against the ban on transgender athletes was State Superintendent of Schools Molly Spearman, who convened the committee while traveling back to watch her alma mater, Saluda High School’s women’s basketball team win its first title since 1953.
“I know how important athletics is to what we are trying to do in our public schools in South Carolina,” said Spearman. “My responsibility as a state superintendent is to ensure that all children feel protected when they are in school and when they are in the athletics field, and I believe that this project does harm to that.”
South Carolina High School Sports League statutes currently prohibit athletes of the opposite sex from competing on a team, according to a 2016 guideline. Since then, four exemptions have been requested and two granted, both for trans women, he said. Commissioner Jerome Singleton to lawmakers.
“It is very important for us to protect women’s sports in high school and elementary school. Women have fought for so long to have equal rights and protection in society, ”said Elizabeth Enns, senior pastor of the International Antioch Church in Fort Mill. “Our girls need physical activity and the option of competitive sports. Women’s sports must be exclusively for girls ”.
She was one of more than 30 people to testify during hours of subcommittee deliberations that began on February 23. An identical bill sponsored by state senator Richard Cash, R-Anderson, is awaiting action by the Education Committee.
Supporters said H. 3477 is the latest attack on the state’s LGBTQ population and is not necessary to guarantee fair competition.
“There are transgender and intersex people, although you all seem to be concerned with two gender identities and two sexes. This is a lot of paper tiger paranoia, ”said Melissa Moore, former executive director of We Are Family in Charleston. “When adults intimidate children like you do with this legislation, it sucks.”
A 2019 U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention survey showed that 2 percent of students identify trans people.
The potential ban has generated buzz from important names on both sides of the issue, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has a “Men in Women’s Sports” section on its website.
The alliance cites a December 2020 study by the British Sports and Medicine Association that found that trans women performed 31% more push-ups and 15% more abdominals in one minute and ran 1 ½ miles 21% faster than biological women. After two years of hormone therapy, scientists found that the gap between push-up and sit-up rates disappeared, but trans women were still running 12% faster.
However, the NCAA allows transgender women to compete in women’s teams after a year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Follow Adam Benson on Twitter @ AdamNewshound12.