SACRAMENTO, CA – California Assemblymember Kate Sanchez (R-Rancho Santa Margarita) last week introduced legislation here to require the California Interscholastic Federation to prohibit the participation of transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, reported the San Francisco Chronicle.
In her statement, Sanchez spoke of unfairness in allowing transgender girls to participate in women’s sports, calling it “disheartening” and “dangerous.”
“Young women who have spent years training and sacrificing to compete at the highest level are now forced to compete against individuals with undeniable biological advantages,” asserted Sanchez in her statement, as quoted by the Sacramento Bee.
The claim that transgender girls possess an unfair advantage in women’s sports has been disputed in the past by medical experts, added the Bee.
The Sacramento Bee cited testimony on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union in the federal lawsuit Hecox v. Little, which contests Idaho’s ban on transgender girls in women’s sports.
Executive director Dr. Joshua D. Safer of Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York stated, “A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance.”
There is “no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman,” continued Dr. Safer, the Bee detailed.
According to the Sacramento Bee’s report, Assemblymember Sanchez’s bill proposal is “almost certainly DOA in the Assembly.”
For Sanchez’s bill to be successfully passed, it would first have to make it to a committee hearing and next be passed by a Democratic supermajority in both the House and the Senate—along with the ability to survive Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto power.
In a statement to The Sacramento Bee, Legislative LGBTQ Caucus Chair Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) said his caucus would defend transgender kids from being used as “political pawns.”
Ward also emphasized the importance of transgender kids being able to benefit from sports participation and how they deserve to thrive “in an environment that both affirms and validates their gender identity.”
In the same statement to the Sacramento Bee, Ward added, “We are surprised the assembly member introduced her first bill targeting a very small, vulnerable population of kids rather than using the opportunity to address key issues of affordability, housing, and more that are impacting Californians.”
“Young women who have spent years training and sacrificing to compete at the highest level are now forced to compete against individuals with undeniable biological advantages, asserted Sanchez”
She’s right.