Republican lawmakers are once again trying to block transgender females from competing in sports, but their renewed targeting of the already-marginalized teens may have even more consequences.
The move comes as last year’s bill preventing transgender girls from being part of school sports teams has been blocked by the courts, leaving lawmakers looking for other ways to clamp down.
The latest anti-transgender measure was slipped into a non-controversial bill that would have made it easier for home-schooled students to participate on a sports team at a public school.
But Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, added language to his House Bill 209 requiring every student participating in any sport or academic activity to provide a birth certificate and to require the Utah High School Activities Association to review them all and determine if a student is eligible.
Under the existing UHSAA policy, a transgender girl can only compete if she has had a year of hormone therapy. But with the Legislature passing — and Gov. Spencer Cox signing — a bill banning hormone treatments, Teuscher’s new language would effectively ban any transgender girl from playing on a sports team going forward.
On Monday, Rep, Kera Birkeland — the sponsor of last year’s ban on transgender athletes that was blocked by the courts — introduced her own stand-alone version of the birth certificate requirement.
All of this is bad enough on its own, but it’s completely predictable given Birkeland and the Legislature’s relentless bullying and hostility toward the transgender community.
But the consequences of the bill could be a lot more widespread — and well beyond the administrative headache and the considerable expense of hiring someone to review these certificates.
Imagine you are a refugee kid or an immigrant who wants to be on the school band or debate team. You wouldn’t be able to do it, unless you happened to have a birth certificate — and many who have fled their home countries do not.
Or what if you’re homeless, living at a shelter or crashing with relatives, and your birth certificate got lost in the process of shuffling between locations? If your family has $20 and three weeks to spare, you might be able to order a new one. If not you can’t play on the team with your friends or be part of the debate club.
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The bill that was designed to make sure that home-schooled kids get to participate in activities with their friends has the very real potential to keep thousands of Utah kids from enjoying the same opportunities.
“That creates a really big problem for us,” Dave Spatafore, representing the Utah High School Activities Association, told a Senate committee.
The senators on the committee didn’t seem to care.
“I’m not too worried about refugees and the other kids,” Sen. Keith Grover said before voting for the bill. “We’re going to address those situations.”
Perhaps they will. Maybe they’ll come up with some convoluted alternative where these already-disadvantaged kids can jump through hoops simply to be part of a team or a club with their peers.
Because, as Grover said, they’re “not too worried about refugees and those other kids.” Those kids are just collateral damage for a Utah Legislature who has proven there is no limit — in time, energy or our money — to how far they will go to marginalize, punish and crush a few transgender girls in Utah who just want to be part of the team, too.
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