Student-athlete bill only serves to punish transgender youth in Idaho
Just before the House State Affairs Committee on Thursday began its second day of testimony on a controversial bill governing transgender student-athletes, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, sat in the chair next to me in the front row. She glanced at my notebook, where I had written “Transgender sports.”
“Remember,” she said, pointing to my scribble. “It’s called Preserving Fairness for Women in Sports.”
I have no doubt that Ehardt sees her bill, which passed the committee on straight party lines Thursday, as a fairness issue for girls and women. In essence, it seeks to prohibit transgender girls and transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
Ehardt was a high school and college athlete, and is a former college basketball coach, who said she has benefited from Title IX. She frames the debate over transgender athletes as making sure girls and women don’t have to compete against “biological boys.”
But after two days of sometimes heartbreaking testimony and tears over the struggles of being transgender, as well as testimony on gender fluidity and the legal concerns about government-mandated invasive medical exams, I’m left with the conclusion that the problems with this bill are just too many and the people who would be hurt by it are just too great.
Saga Christian, a transgender woman from Meridian, testified about sensing something different about herself when she started to hit puberty in fifth grade. She wanted to play volleyball, but there was no boys team. She was told she couldn’t play with the girls team, or any girls teams moving forward.
“And at the time, I didn’t really understand what being trans was,” she said. “I just remember this empty feeling of just being other. ... I applied for other sports, gymnastics, dance. And again, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to compete or participate. And eventually, me as this strong academic, go-get-them attitude, I became someone who skipped school and got into alcohol and drugs when I was 15, and eventually later in life ended up homeless, 10 years of alcoholism, three suicide attempts.”
Other testimony came from doctors, parents with transgender children and a transgender father of a 14-month-old intersex child, who when they grow up likely will be affected by this legislation. Some testimony centered on government overreach in the bill of mandating invasive medical examinations involving pelvic exams, genetic testing and bloodwork anytime anyone challenges the sex of someone participating in a sport.
“This bill addresses imaginary fears and does nothing to address the real issues,” said the Rev. Marci Glass, of the Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise. “The people in my congregation who are transgender are not seeking unfair advantages in our society. They are seeking safety. They want to be able to live into their identities with support and love. So putting questionable athletic intentions on my friends in the trans community is beneath the high ideals of our government.“
In addition to the emotional arguments, the legal and government overreach arguments against this bill were compelling.
We can’t simply pretend transgender youth don’t exist, that they don’t deserve to have the same experiences and opportunities growing up as every other child has.
I understand the fears over transgender girls playing girls sports, dominating play and winning state titles and breaking records, and there are stories scattered across the country. And three high school female athletes are suing the state of Connecticut for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports.
But as Chelsea Gaona-Lincoln, quoting state Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, told the committee: “A strongly held belief does not necessarily mean that it is a fear worth rationalizing to legislate. And he has told me that is called a boogeyman bill. And this is definitely a boogeyman bill if I’ve ever seen one.”
