Texas Moving Forward Once More with Bill Targeting Trans Youth Athletes

Texas is in the news once again for attacking the rights of folks who are adamantly fighting for their own equality, though this time, it’s another bill looking to ban trans kids from playing in school sports that align with their gender.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) says that republicans have the votes to pass Senate Bill 3, which would force trans students to compete in school sports that align with the gender on their birth certificates. Phelan tells Texas Tribune that one co-sponsor of the bill “has close to 80 co-authors on the bill,” which would represent more than half of lawmakers with seats in the chambers.

“The votes are there on the House floor to probably pass the legislation as it stands now,” Phelan says, as the Texas Legislature approaches its third special session of the year.

Texas has already attempted to pass previous iterations of SB 3 earlier this year. During the regular Texas legislative session, the anti-trans sports bill, then called Senate Bill 29, failed to meet a midnight deadline when democrats ran down the clock during the final minutes. The successive bills introduced in the state’s two prior, special sessions also failed to clear the House when democrats fled the state to prevent the passing of a voter suppression law.

The bill heads to the Texas House once more, after passing in the Senate with a 19-12 vote. Phelan says that there is one hurdle remaining that would stall SB 3’s passage: committee debate. If democrats in the House can vote down the legislation before the entire chambers hear it, the bill could be blocked for a fourth time. According to comments reported by Texas Tribune, Phelan “does not yet have assurances whether the bill will make it through committee.”

He expands, “Like any other piece of legislation, it’ll be incumbent upon the author to make the case throughout the process, and we’ll see if it makes it to the House floor.”

The bill has been met with heavy opposition by LGBTQ groups, who consistently point out that trans student athletes in the state are essentially already banned from playing on sports teams that correspond with their gender. The University Interscholastic League of Texas oversees all high school athletics in the state and only allows trans students to play in alignment with their gender if they present a corrected birth certificate, which are typically challenging to obtain in the state.

SB 3 is one of many bills pushed forward in Texas, and a record high in anti-LGBTQ legislation pushed in the country throughout the year. If it is signed into law, Texas will join nine other states to restrict trans student participation in sports. Learn more about these bans with the Movement Advancement Project.