The House of Representatives of Arizona passed bills Thursday to ban gender reassignment surgery for minors.s and prohibit transgender athletes from playing on women’s sports teams, joining a growing list of Republican-controlled states trying to curtail the rights of transgender people as they gain more visibility in the culture. and society
the republican governor Doug Ducey has not said if he will sign any of the bills. This week, two Republican governors defied conservatives in their party and They vetoed bills in Indiana and Utah that require trans girls to play on boys’ sports teams.
Republicans have said that blocking transgender athletes from women’s sports teams would protect the integrity of sports women, claiming that trans athletes would have an advantage. Many point to transgender collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas, who won an individual title at the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship last week.
But there are few trans athletes in Arizona schools. Since 2017, around 16 trans athletes have received waivers to play on teams that align with their identities of approximately 170,000 high school athletes in the state, according to the Arizona Interscholastic Association.
“For me, this bill is about biology,” said Republican Rep. Shawnna Bolick, who said she played on a coed team in the 1980s but couldn’t have made the boys’ team in high school. “In my opinion, it is unfair to allow biological men to compete with biological girl sports.”.
Critics said the legislation dehumanizes trans youth to address a problem that has not been a problem. “We are talking about legislating bullying against children who are already struggling to get ahead,” Democratic Rep. Kelli Butler said, holding back tears.
Until two years ago, no state had passed a law regulating gender-designated youth sports. But the issue has become the focus of Republican-led state chambers. since Idaho lawmakers passed the country’s first sports participation law in 2020. That law is now blocked in court, along with another in West Virginia.
“This bill is creating a useless and harmful solution to a nonexistent problem,” Skyler Morrison, a 13-year-old transgender girl, told lawmakers during a committee hearing earlier this month. “It is obvious that this bill is just an excuse to discriminate against transgender girls.”
Republicans across the country have leaned into culture war issues, including transgender rights. The debate and vote on transgender sports legislation came on the same morning the Arizona House of Representatives passed a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Republicans said little during debates on the three bills.
Arizona is one of 20 states that have considered legislation to restrict gender-affirming health care. Originally, the bill would have prohibited all such care for minors, but reduced to restrict only irreversible proceduressuch as surgeries related to gender reassignment.
Similar legislation was passed by the Idaho House of Representatives earlier this month, but died in the Senate amid concerns from some Republicans about curtailing parental rights.
Supporters of the Arizona bill they said it would prevent kids from making permanent decisions they might later regret. Republican Rep. John Kavanagh compared the vote to the Legislature’s unanimous decision in 2014 to ban female genital mutilation.
“We should do the same thing today because this is child maiming,” Kavanagh said. “It is irreversible. It is awful.
critics said que The decision should be left to the parents, their children, and the health care team caring for them. They said the surgeries are only done after extensive care and therapy.
“We are talking about our children, who are already going to be taking the appropriate steps with their parents to be able to be who they are,” said Democratic representative Andrés Cano.
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