Parent of transgender athlete speaks out against legislation banning participation in girls’ sports
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MIAMI (WFOR) — Youth sports is a big focus in many children’s lives, but some parents say new legislation may prevent them from participating.
“I was terrified to tell her the one thing that has been constant in her life since she was 3 years old, for 10 years, was going to be taken away from her,” a parent of a transgender child told CBS4’s Bobeth Yates.
CBS4 agreed to hide the identity of the parent because she fears her transgender child would face retaliation. Still, the parent wanted to come forward after state lawmakers passed a bill that would prevent transgender children from playing sports with children of their gender.
“We want to make sure that women and girls can compete fairly with each other as opposed to being spectators,” Republican State Rep. Danny Perez. “And that’s what we would have if we had biological women competing in sports against biological males.”
Parez was among those who voted for the measure. And while he did not have an example of a problem locally, he said it has happened in other areas.
“In Connecticut high school sports, there are two biological males that have participated in track and field sports with biological females,” he said, “and they have won state titles year after year after year, simply because a male is born different than a biological female.”
But the local transgender parent who is familiar with the case says it wasn’t as cut and dry. She explained that those same girls who competed and lost against the transgender girls couldn’t even go on to make their own college teams either.
“It wasn’t because the transgender girls were apparently better. It was that the girls who were filing the lawsuit just weren’t fast enough when compared to other cisgender girls,” the parent explained.
The parent said her daughter has an unfair disadvantage because of the hormone required for transitioning process.
“She has the least amount of testosterone of any girl on her team or any team she plays against, and I know that for a fact because we check it several times a year,” the parent said.
But lawmakers stress the bill does not prevent transgender athletes from participating in sports, they just have to play with the gender they were at birth.
“To put her in an environment that she that she will feel alien to, to make her try to belong in environment that she’s never belong to, that’s abuse,” the parent said.
The legislation still has to be signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which he has indicated he will do.
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