{"id":1457,"date":"2022-03-23T20:43:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T20:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/utah-governor-says-hell-veto-transgender-youth-sports-ban-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T20:43:37","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T20:43:37","slug":"utah-governor-says-hell-veto-transgender-youth-sports-ban-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/23\/utah-governor-says-hell-veto-transgender-youth-sports-ban-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah governor says he'll veto transgender youth sports ban – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said that he plans to veto legislation passed Friday that would ban transgender student-athletes from competing in girls sports.
Without his support, Utah is unlikely to join the 11 states, all Republican-led, that have recently enacted bans on transgender girls wanting to compete in school sports leagues that correspond with their gender identity.
In vowing to veto the bill, Cox directly addressed transgender student-athletes, who he said found themselves the subject of political debate through no fault of their own.
\u201cI just want them to know that it\u2019s gonna be OK. We\u2019re gonna work through this,\u201d Cox said.
The governor had for months engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiations to broker a compromise between LGBTQ advocates and social conservatives.
After throwing his support behind\u00a0a proposal to create a first-of-its-kind commission of experts<\/a>\u00a0in Utah to make decisions on individual transgender student-athletes aiming to participate, Cox said he was stunned on Friday night as lawmakers advanced and ultimately passed an amended proposal that included an outright ban on transgender student-athletes competing in girls leagues.
Legislation sent to Cox after passing through the state Senate and House on Friday bans \u201cbiological males\u201d \u2014 which it defines as \u201can individual\u2019s genetics and anatomy at birth\u201d \u2014 from girls leagues. Supporters said it would ensure fairness and safety for girls and pre-empt cultural shifts they said could lead to a growing number of transgender kids wanting to compete in girls sports in the future.
\u201cBoys can run faster, they can jump higher and they can throw farther than girls in the same age bracket,\u201d Republican state Sen. Curt Bramble said.
\u201cTo have individuals that are born male compete against naturally born females, it\u2019s an unfair playing field,\u201d he added.
The originally proposed \u201cSchool Activity Eligibility Commission\u201d would have been comprised of a mix of experts in sports and transgender health care. It ultimately failed to gain buy-in from those opposed to and supportive of a ban.
Though they preferred it to an outright ban, LGBTQ advocates worried transgender kids required to appear before the panel would feel targeted. Social conservatives, backed by a much larger contingent of Republican lawmakers, said it didn\u2019t go far enough to protect girls sports.
There are no public accusations of a transgender players having competitive advantages in Utah. The Associated Press last year\u00a0reached out<\/a>\u00a0to two dozen lawmakers in the more than 20 states considering similar youth sports measures and found that only a few times has it been an issue among the hundreds of thousands of teenagers who play high school sports.
The legislation sent to the governor aims to rebut what commission advocates, including the bill\u2019s sponsor Rep. Kera Birkeland, believed was among their strongest arguments: that courts would likely prevent Utah from enforcing a ban, much like they have in states such as\u00a0Idaho<\/a>.
The ban that ultimately passed retained sections of the original proposal and designated the commission as a back-up, for a scenario in which courts prohibited Utah from enforcing a ban.
Birkeland, who coaches high school basketball when not in the Legislature, said her intention in introducing a transgender youth sports bill for the second year in a row had to do with conversations she had with transgender and cisgender students.
Though Utah lawmakers ultimately ended in a similar place, Birkeland\u2019s comments were marked different than those made by lawmakers in states such as Iowa, where one senator framed a ban as a stand against \u201cwokeness\u201d and part of \u201can ongoing culture war.\u201d
Birkeland said she was frustrated by the many conversations she had about the politics of her proposed commission, rather than the kids affected.
She expects it to face legal challenges but ultimately supported the amended legislation because she said, if the ban gets enjoined by courts, the commission will end up working as intended.
Equality Utah, an LGBTQ rights group opposed to state intervention in youth sports, said they were blindsided by the passage of the legislation.
\u201cWe have failed our state\u2019s transgender children, who just want to be treated with kindness and respect,\u201d the group said in a statement.
In most places, eligibility decisions for transgender kids are made by sports organizations like the Utah High School Athletic Association. Out of the roughly 85,000 student-athletes that play high school sports in the state, four transgender players have gone through the association\u2019s eligibility determination process.
Despite those established processes, youth sports have increasingly become a central policy issue in Republican-majority statehouses. Before 2020, no state had enacted a law pertaining to transgender kids participating in youth sports. Since, 11 states have since passed laws banning transgender girls from playing in leagues corresponding with their gender identity: Alabama<\/a>,\u00a0Arkansas<\/a>,\u00a0Florida<\/a>,\u00a0Idaho<\/a>,\u00a0Iowa<\/a>,\u00a0Mississippi<\/a>,\u00a0Montana<\/a>,\u00a0South Dakota<\/a>,\u00a0Tennessee<\/a>,\u00a0Texas<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0West Virginia<\/a>.
In Indiana, lawmakers passed a ban this week, sending it to Gov. Eric Holcomb for final approval.
The nature of the bans vary. Some explicitly target transgender girls, who have been the primary subject of debate in most statehouses. Others are broad enough to include college athletics.
With two-thirds majorities in both chambers, lawmakers could override a governor\u2019s veto, however with some Republicans opposing the ban, such a scenario is unlikely.
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ProfileSectionstvFeaturedMore From NBCFollow NBC NewsUtah Gov. Spencer Cox said that he plans to veto legislation passed Friday that would ban transgender student-athletes from competing in girls sports.Without his support, Utah is unlikely to join the 11 states, all Republican-led, that have recently enacted bans on transgender girls wanting to compete in school sports leagues that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}