Idaho Legislator to Introduce Bill Banning Biological Males from Women’s Sports
A member of Idaho’s legislature plans to introduce a bill barring biological males from competing in women’s high school sports.
Representative Barbara Ehardt, a Republican from Idaho Falls, said her bill would prohibit transgender individuals who were born biologically male from competing in women’s high school sports and vice versa. Under the bill, people with different chromosomes would compete separately regardless of what gender they identify with.
“Boys and men will not be able to take the place of girls and women in sports because it’s not fair. We cannot physically compete against boys and men. The inherent biological, scientific advantages that boys and men have over girls and women, even if they were to take hormones, even if they were to spend a couple of years on estrogen, that’s not going to replace the inherent biological advantages that boys and men have,” Ehardt told the East Idaho News.
Ehardt said she has been working on the bill for 18 months and that her intention is simply to stand up for women and girls, not work against LGBT rights.
“This has nothing to do with an anti-LGBT agenda,” she said. “This is all about providing the opportunity for girls and women to continue to compete just as our counterparts, boys and men, are able to compete.”
“Those biological boys, those men, can still compete. It will just have to be with those who look like them, that have the same large heart and lungs,” Ehardt said.
Ehardt also plans to introduce another controversial piece of legislation this year on sex education, which would request that parents opt in who want their child to take sex education classes and require teachers to disclose to parents any sexual content in their curricula.
Republican legislators in at least five other states, New Hampshire, Washington, Georgia, Tennessee and Missouri, have proposed bills preventing transgender women from competing in women’s sports amid concerns that female athletes face unfair competition from biological males.
