Kongressen i Florida vedtok onsdag et lovforslag som forbyr transjenter å delta i jenters skolesport og pålegger i tillegg jenter, hvis kjønn er “omstridt”, å gjennomgå inspeksjon av kjønnsorganene.
H.B. 1475 g ble vedtatt langs partilinjene, dvs 77-40 stemmer, der bare en demokrat stemte for og ingen republikanere motsatte seg det.
LGBTQnation skriver:
“We gave everything we had to give,” said state Rep. Omari Hardy (D) on Twitter. “We reasoned, we shouted, we pleaded, we cried, we broke down & left the House Floor.”
But that wasn’t enough to stop H.B. 1475 from passing because Republicans control the chamber.
Like most state-level bills attacking transgender student-athletes, this bill only bans transgender girls from school sports, not transgender boys. It also affects all levels of education, including the college-level, using language parroted by Republicans across the country about how cisgender girls are being denied scholarships and may be crowded out of sports altogether by transgender students, something that has never happened in any state or in any sport.
But unlike many states, where these bills have either been vague about how sex will be determined or point to birth certificates, the Florida bill says that a female student-athlete’s sex can be disputed. A dispute would require a “health examination and consent form or another statement from the student’s health care provider to verify the student’s biological sex.”
“The health care provider may verify the student’s biological sex as part of a routine sports physical examination by relying only on one or more of the following: 1. The student’s reproductive anatomy; 2. The student’s genetic makeup; or 3. The student’s normal endogenously produced testosterone levels,” the text of the five-page bill reads,” the bill states.
Schools that don’t force a student-athlete to undergo an examination of her genitalia, DNA, and hormones could face lawsuits if the bill passes.
The bill is modeled on last year’s bill in Idaho, which a federal judge has already issued an injunction against. Democrats in that state said that the law could allow competitors with a grudge against a girl on an opposing team to challenge her gender and that the threat of such a challenge – and the ensuing invasive testing – could make even cisgender teen girls afraid to compete in school sports.
