Texas bans transgender women, girls from collegiate athletics

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed legislation Thursday prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in collegiate athletics, building on a 2021 law that requires public school sports teams through high school to be designated by students’ sex assigned at birth.

Texas’s Senate Bill 15, also known as the state’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” mandates that intercollegiate athletes participate only on sports teams matching their “biological sex,” which the legislation defines as that which is “correctly” stated on a student’s original birth certificate.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which oversees post-secondary education in the state, has been tasked with drafting and adopting rules that ensure compliance with state and federal laws regarding the confidentiality of student health and medical information.

The new law, which will take effect in September, makes it simpler for college students in Texas to sue their schools if they continue allowing transgender athletes to participate on sports teams that do not match their gender identity.

A 2021 law signed by Abbott already prohibits transgender athletes in K-12 Texas school districts from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Republicans in the state Legislature this session argued that a second law focusing on intercollegiate sports was needed to ensure fair play at the most competitive levels of college athletics.

“Today is an important day for female athletes across the state of Texas, including little girls who aspire to one day compete in college sports,” Abbott said Thursday during a signing ceremony in Austin.

Sitting before a sign that read “A Win for Women Athletes,” Abbott on Thursday repeatedly referred to transgender women and girls as “men.”

“The Save Women’s Sports Act protects young women at Texas colleges and universities by prohibiting men from competing on a team or as an individual against them in college sports,” he said, adding “Women in Texas can be assured that the integrity of their sports will be protected in our state.”

The NCAA, the organization that regulates college athletics, has for more than a decade allowed transgender women and girls to compete on female sports teams if they had at least one year of hormone replacement therapy to treat gender dysphoria. Last year, the conference’s board of governors adopted a new policy that determines transgender athletes’ qualification for participation on a sport-by-sport basis.

Including Texas, 22 states have passed laws that prevent transgender athletes from competing on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks state-level legislation affecting the LGBTQ community. In April, the U.S. House advanced a similar bill.

Abbott earlier this month signed legislation barring transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming health care, including puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy and surgeries, one of 17 Republican governors to do so this year. 

In all, lawmakers in Texas’s GOP-controlled legislature have introduced at least 53 bills targeting LGBTQ people this session, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the most of any state.