Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday signed a bill into law that bans transgender girls from competing in female sports in public schools.
The bill, authored in the Texas State House of Representatives by Rep. Valoree Swanson, requires “student-athletes who compete in an interscholastic competition to play on sports teams that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificate, according to CBS 11 in Dallas.
State Rep. Swanson said she is “excited that we have the opportunity today to stand up for our daughters, granddaughters, and all our Texas girls.”
She added, “It also makes it where they [biological girls] have absolutely no opportunity, they know that it’s already set, the results are already set before they even start.”
Texas joins seven other Republican-led states, including Florida, that have sought to bar male-born athletes from competing alongside or against athletes who were identified as female at birth.
The Texas transgender ban follows an executive order signed by Joe Biden in January that mandates federally-funded schools to allow biological boys who self-identify as girls to compete on girls’ teams or face punishment from the Department of Education.
Gov. Abbott isn’t the only Republican governor to fight back against Biden’s transgender executive order.
In June, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar bill that banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
According to FloridaPolitcs.com, “the bill will make female athletes’ eligibility for sports teams contingent on their ‘biological sex’ on birth certificates issued ‘at or near the time of the student’s birth.’”
Upon signing the bill into law, DeSantis said, “We believe that it’s important to have integrity in the competition and we think it’s important that they be able to compete on a level playing field.”
At times, female athletes have been forced to compete against transgender athletes, putting them at a significant disadvantage.
For example, in Connecticut in 2019, a high school track athlete named Selina Soule was forced to compete against “female-identifying biological males in a high-stakes track competition where two transgender sprinters beat the field, taking first and second place,” according to the Daily Wire.
As a result, Soule missed an opportunity to compete in front of “college coaches by two places.”
The Texas bill seeks to prevent what happened to Selina Soule from happening to other female athletes.
