Published: April 7, 2022
By: Piper Hutchinson, LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE–The Senate Education Committee advanced a bill Thursday that would prohibit transgender athletes from competing in accordance with their gender identity.
Senate Bill 44, sponsored by Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, is dubbed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.” The bill requires athletes from the elementary through collegiate level to compete based on their sex at birth.
The bill unanimously cleared the committee, with neither of the two Democrats on the committee, Sen. Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge, or Sen. Katrina Jackson, of Monroe objecting.
The bill is redundant at the high school level, as the Louisiana High School Athletic Association already requires athletes to compete based on their birth sex, leading critics to call the bill a solution in search of a problem. When the bill came up last year, the LHSAA said that it was aware of only one transgender athlete who had tried to compete in Louisiana.
But if the bill becomes law, it could shake up college athletics. NCAA policy allows transgender athletes to compete under certain circumstances.
Read more at The Times of Houma/Thibodaux
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 