A South Carolina House committee rejected a bill to prevent transgender athletes from participating in sports based on their gender identity.
The House Judiciary Committee presented the bill without a registered vote, probably killing its chances of approval in the House controlled by Republicans.
Representative Micah Caskey (R-West Columbia) asked for the measure to be presented, and advocates of the bill did not get enough support to take a registered vote.
Caskey told ABC’s WSOC TV affiliate that his initial problem with the bill began with the assertion that there are two biological sexes and that a person’s sex is objectively determined by genetics and anatomy at birth – a falsehood disproved by existence of intersex individuals.
“This is a comment on gender identity, very well. But a matter of urology is simply not the case, ”said Caskey. “Physiologically, some people, as a percentage of the population, do not develop that way.”
Caskey also said that supporters failed to show that transgender athletes competing posed a significant problem that required Columbia lawmakers to resolve, rather than leaving it to the South Carolina School League, which oversees inter-school sports in the state.
Proponents of the project argued that it was necessary to protect girls and women from wasting playing time or scholarships if transgender athletes were allowed on their teams. But there have been no complaints from transsexual students allegedly taking opportunities from female athletes so far in South Carolina.
Opponents of the bill argue that transgender athletes do not have the advantages that conservatives claim to have, especially if those athletes are receiving puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care.
“No transgender athlete has ever qualified for the Olympics, despite the rules in place for more than a decade,” Chase Glenn of the Alliance for Full Acceptance told lawmakers at a hearing last month.
See too: Missouri father’s testimony against ban on trans athletes gets national attention
State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman, an independently elected Republican, spoke again about the bill at that hearing, saying she supports allowing the South Carolina High School League to consider each case involving an individual student athlete, without state interference. .
“I know how important athletics is to what we are trying to do in our public schools in South Carolina,” said Spearman, according to the Post and Courier. “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 undermines that.”
South Carolina was one of nearly two dozen states with bills that aimed to restrict transgender youth from competing in sports based on their gender identity or receiving gender-affirming health treatments. Mississippi has already passed its own bill banning trans athletes from competing in women’s sports, and South Dakota appears prepared to do the same. Idaho passed a similar law last year, but it was blocked by a federal judge.
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