A Republican lawmaker in Montana has introduced some bills aimed at transgender youth.
House Bill 112, written by State Representative John Fuller, requires that athletics teams at all public educational institutions – from elementary schools to colleges – be designated on the basis of ‘biological sex’. The measure, also known as the Save Women’s Sports Act, would prohibit transgender students from joining teams that match their gender identity, no matter how long they have been transitioning.
“Athletic teams or sports designated for women, women or girls may not be open to male students”, it reads in part.
Fuller told Montana Public Radio that he, as a former women’s soccer coach, believes it’s unfair to let transgender girls play on women’s teams. His bill would allow students to sue if they feel they have been deprived or harmed in some way by a trans athlete participating in school sports.
“I want to protect and defend women’s sports,” he told the Helena Independent Record. “I believe that this continuing practice of getting men to compete as women is bad and wrong.”
Another bill, also drafted by Fuller, would prevent health workers from providing transgender minors with certain transitional care.
In terms of House Bill 113, also known as the Youth Health Protection Act, doctors and other medical professionals are prohibited from treating gender dysphoria in minors by prescribing puberty suppressants or transgender hormones (estrogen and testosterone). ; performing gender reassignment surgery; or the removal of “any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.” Penalties for violators of the law will include fines of up to $ 50,000.
According to Fuller, Fuller said it was “deeply wrong” for young people to undergo such procedures. “We do not let children do all kinds of things,” he told the Helena Independent Record. ‘Why should we allow this to happen? The state has a firm interest in protecting children from such barbaric behavior. ‘
Fuller did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union, said conservatives have turned away from the so-called ‘bathroom bills’ toward youth-centered legislation after the fallout of North Carolina’s House Bill 2.
“After the marriage decision, there was an immediate setback for transgender people using the bathroom – you saw dozens of these bills,” Strangio told NBC News. ‘Then you see the extremely affirmative reaction – from companies, from the NCAA – and between 2017 and 2019 they lose the bathroom battle. There are no more laws; they lose their court battles and they lose voting initiatives. ”
In 2018, Montana’s own bathroom bill received less than half of the 25,000 signatures needed to qualify for a state referendum.
Then, in 2019, Juniper Eastwood, a student at the University of Montana, became the first transgender runner to compete at Division I level. According to Strangio, this is ‘when conservatives start switching to sports’.
‘They begin to shape this narrative about trans-student-athletes that appears on Fox News, Breitbart, the Daily Caller. This attracts a number of cis women’s groups that were concerned about female athletes, ” he said, with an abbreviated term for the word cisgender, meaning non-transgender.
That same year, Strangio said, a much-publicized surveillance battle in which a 7-year-old transgender girl in Texas became “another right-wing media moment” becomes.
“By the summer of 2020, you have drafted the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation to draft these youth youth bills,” he added. “They are not led by the voters. It is compiled by well-funded right-wing groups and sent to state legislators. And they play on people’s fears and misconceptions. ”
In 2020, the U.S. Principles project in Michigan spent $ 4 million on political ads rejecting transgender athletes and providing access to gender-confirming health care for people under 18.
In addition to Montana, at least six other states – including Alabama, Indiana, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Missouri and Utah – are currently considering bills that impose criminal or civil fines for providing transitional care to minors, according to the ACLU.
Lawmakers have sponsored legislation restricting transgender students from sports participation in at least 12 states, including Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Washington. Only Idaho’s account has passed so far.
Idaho’s House Bill 500, the Act on Justice in Women’s Sports, was signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little last March. A month later, Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student athlete at Boise State University, filed a lawsuit. After a lower court issued an order against the enforcement, HB 500 now serves before the ninth U.S. Court of Appeals.
In a court order, nearly 200 female athletes, including Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe and Candace Parker, argued that the HB 500 “flies in the face of the fundamentals of equality and diversity in sport.”
“The global athletics community is growing stronger as we welcome all athletes and campaigners including LGBTQI + athletes.” King said in a statement.
Strangio said Montana’s HB 112 is virtually a carbon copy of Idaho’s law.
Readings for both Montana accounts are scheduled for Wednesday, January 20, for public comment. Republicans, who currently control both chambers of the state legislature in the state of Montana, will have until April to pass the measure in this legislative session.
The ACLU of Montana has vowed to sue if that happens.
On Thursday, more than 150 state organizations, businesses and professional groups joined the organization to oppose Fuller.
“Make no mistake: these bills target trans youth and attack them and will cause them serious and lasting harm,” ACLU executive director Caitlin Borgmann said in a statement. “We can not allow fear robbery and lies about what it means to be transgender to lead to laws that will stigmatize trans youth, harm families and communities, and drive businesses out of Montana.”
Bozeman’s restaurateur, Pete Strom, pointed to the economic toll that HB 112 and 113 could take by recalling the repeal of North Carolina’s HB2 bathroom bill. In 2016, according to Forbes, North Carolina lost an estimated $ 630 million in economic activity related to HB2.
“Montana does not need it,” he said in a statement. “It is simply common sense to oppose these out-of-touch and harmful anti-trans bills.”
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