Equality or exclusion? New ballot measure seeks to separate school sports teams by sex
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Colorado voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on one of the biggest hot button issue in the country.
Ballot measure #109 titled "Concerning Male and Female Participation in School Sports" seeks to require the governing body of every school (charter, public, private, and even college and community college) to require separate teams for girls/women and boys/men based on biological sex.
The measure's language says it would reduce the chance of injury for female athletes and promote equality between the sexes.
LGBTQ+ advocates say it's another attack on transgender students.
"We're not anti anything. We're pro-child protection," said Erin Lee, the Co-Founder of Protect Our Kids, who helped get 109 on the ballot. "It's just designating all sports leagues male, female, or coed."
With one caveat being sports with no female equivalent. Lee says this wouldn't prevent girls/women from putting on shoulder pads between the hashes.
Lee said in the canvassing process, tons of parents came up to her expressing concerns about males in female sports. The ballot language itself says,
"Because of the physical differences between males and females, having separate
athletic teams based on the biological sex of the athlete reduces the chance of injury
to female athletes, promotes equality between the sexes, provides opportunities for
female athletes to compete against their female peers rather than against male athletes,
and allows female athletes to compete on a fair playing field for athletic
accomplishments, including educational scholarships."
"Parents were afraid for their daughter's safety. They were afraid for their opportunities. So it's personal, and I know it's happening all over the state," Lee said.
However, not everyone sees it as protecting women's sports. Some see it as singling out an at-risk population.
"Who's going to be looking at young people, especially young girls? To say whether or not they are transgender or cisgender."
Nadine Bridges is the Executive Director of One Colorado, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
To answer her question, the measure says gender is "determined by certain aspects of their biological reproductive system," but does not mention who makes that determination. Lee tells KRDO13 there wouldn't be genital checks; instead, a mouth swab that would identify XX or XY chromosomes.
That is not mentioned in the ballot language, which instead says that male and female will be determined by reproductive systems.
" 'FEMALE' MEANS A PERSON WHOSE BIOLOGICAL REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM IS
ORGANIZED AROUND THE PRODUCTION OF OVA."" 'MALE' MEANS A PERSON WHOSE BIOLOGICAL REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM IS
ORGANIZED AROUND THE PRODUCTION OF SPERM."
"Their campaign is Protect Kids Colorado. So if you are making an assumption of who is transgender, nonbinary, or gender expansive and you're trying to protect kids from them, that would seem to me to be anti-trans," Bridges said.
