Story at a glance
- The Arizona legislature on Thursday sent two bills targeting the state’s trans and nonbinary youth to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk.
- Ducey now has five days to either veto the bills or sign them into law.
- One of the bills would bar transgender girls from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity. The other would prohibit health care professionals from prescribing treatments like puberty blockers or hormones when they are to be used for a “gender transition.”
Arizona lawmakers on Thursday sent two bills targeting the state’s transgender and nonbinary youth to the governor’s desk, where the fate of both bills are still uncertain. If both are signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, transgender girls would be barred from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity and access to gender-affirming care for minors would be heavily restricted.
Republicans in the state legislature have argued that excluding transgender girls from girls’ sports teams would protect the integrity of women’s sports, which some say is being threatened by trans players who have an unfair advantage over cisgender players.
“This bill to me is all about biology,” Republican Rep. Shawnna Bolick said Thursday, the Associated Press reported. “In my opinion, it’s unfair to allow biological males to compete with biological girls sports.”
Notably, only a handful of transgender athletes compete on school sports teams in Arizona, and, since 2017, just 16 trans minors have received waivers to play on teams that match their gender identities out of roughly 170,000 student athletes in the state, according to the Arizona Interscholastic Association. Those opposed to the legislation have called it a solution to a nonexistent problem.
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A similar argument was made earlier this week by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) in vetoing his own state’s proposed ban on transgender athletes. According to Cox, there are currently just four trans student athletes in the state of Utah, and only one plays on a girls’ sports team.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) this week also vetoed a bill that would have required transgender girls to play on boys’ sports teams, claiming that the bill as written “leaves too many unanswered questions.”
Arizona on Thursday also sent legislation to the governor that would restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary minors. Under the bill, health care professionals may not provide patients under the age of 18 with puberty blockers or hormones when those treatments are to be used for a “gender transition.”
If the intended use of hormones like testosterone and estrogen is to affirm a patient’s gender, they are considered “cross-sex hormones,” according to the bill.
LGBTQ+ advocates immediately called on Ducey, who has five days to act, to veto the legislation, calling both bills discriminatory and dangerous.
“Arizona has unfortunately joined the long list of states that have made bullying and discriminating against trans students a priority this legislative session,” Darrell Hill, ACLU of Arizona policy director, said in a statement. “These unabated attacks on trans kids attempt to solve problems that do not exist and singles out people for simply being transgender. Gov. Ducey should follow in the footsteps of the Republican governors in Idaho and Indiana and veto legislation that harms the health and well-being of transgender youth.”
“Today, the Arizona House brought the number of anti-trans bills advanced across the country in a single day to five, passing one restricting trans and nonbinary youth’s access to both sports and another banning best-practice, gender-affirming medical care. While the rationale for these bans are not based on fact, the debates surrounding them are having a tangible negative impact on the mental health of an overwhelming majority of trans youth,” Sam Ames, director of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project, said in a statement.
“Placing coaches and doctors in a position where they can be disciplined or even imprisoned for following professional best practices and supporting trans and nonbinary youth is unethical and dangerous,” Ames said.
A third bill passed by the Arizona legislature on Thursday would outlaw abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
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