On Tuesday, the White House condemned legislation in Texas that would ban students from playing on sports teams of the other sex, indicating that the Biden administration might take legal action if the bill becomes law.
“This hateful bill in Texas is just the latest example of Republican state lawmakers using legislation to target transgender kids — whom the president believes are some of the bravest Americans — in order to score political points,” White House spokesman Ike Hajinazarian said to The Dallas Morning News. “These anti-transgender bills are nothing more than bullying disguised as legislation and undermine our nation’s core values.”
Matt Hill, senior associate communications director for the White House, indicated that the Biden administration might take legal action against the bill if it is signed into law, saying, “Our message to young transgender people in Texas and across the country: these hateful bills are bullying disguised as legislation, and @POTUS and our Administration will always keep fighting for the full equality LGBTQ+ folks deserve.”
The bill passed Texas legislature last week, and is expected to be signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The bill states that schools “may not allow a student to compete in an interscholastic athletic competition sponsored or authorized by the district or school that is designated for the biological sex opposite to the student’s biological sex.”
The bill does not mention “trans” or “gender” at all, and is purely designed to prevent biological differences between the two sexes from being utilized by an athlete to gain an unfair advantage against other athletes.
“Biological males, in addition to having much higher testosterone levels, have many other physiological advantages that girls just cannot overcome,” state Rep. Valoree Swanson (R-TX), one of the authors of the bill, explained.
