Texas Governor Greg Abbot will not allow transgender athletes to participate in Texas college sports.. SwimmingSwimming .“This next session, we will pass a law prohibiting biological men to compete against women in college sports,” said Abbot to a young conservatives meeting Monday in Dallas..In 2021, Texas passed a similar ban for public school athletic competition from kindergarten through to high school..Two Texas lawmakers filed a bill to ban trans women from competing in college sports against biological women..Texas is not the first state to pass laws or place restrictions on transgender athletes competing in sports outside their biological sex, as 17 other states have done so. However, most have been challenged in the court system and a similar court challenge can be expected in Texas..Abbot discussed Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania swimmer who competed in the NCAA women’s national swimming championships. Thomas is from Austin, Texas..Sixteen of Thomas teammates said she had an “unfair biological advantage.”.“We’ve fought for the rights of women to be able to succeed in this world only to have that now superseded by this ideology that men are going to be empowered to compete against women,” said Abbott..Thomas competed in women’s swimming because she kept her testosterone level below the NCAA requirement for trans women to compete. Thomas broke records and won titles in the women’s division..In 2021, Florida passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, banning biological men from competing against women in public school and college sports. In Florida, when signing up for an athletic event, the person must show their birth certificate..Texas LQBTQ group Equality Texas tweeted that “this type of legislation would abandon trans athletes and leave them without a way to express themselves in sports.”.A Texas youth trans athlete Elliot told the It Gets Better project that “these laws are not ‘protecting girls.’ They are hurting girls because transgender girls are girls. Science supports that transgender people are valid and you should to. Let us play sports.”
