By Maria Benevento
Missouri News Network
JEFFERSON CITY — A crowd of transgender children, their parents and other activists attended a Missouri House committee meeting Wednesday to comment on a proposed constitutional amendment that would affect trans students’ participation in sports.
House Joint Resolution 82, sponsored by Rep. Robert Ross, would require that for public school sports separated by sex, students only be allowed to join the team that matches the sex on their birth certificate. If approved by the legislature and governor, it would go up for voter approval this fall.
Ross, R-Yukon, said boys on average are more athletic, and so he has concerns about increased risk of injury when those who are transitioning compete with girls. He is also concerned about girls losing scholarship opportunities when competing against students who are transitioning.
Bill opponents and several of Ross’ fellow representatives suggested that those concerns were unfounded and worried that the amendment would unfairly exclude trans students. Some also said the public controversy that would precede a vote on an amendment could put trans students at risk and harm their mental health.
Ross said the resolution would affect nontrans girls who play on boys teams because there isn’t a girls equivalent — such as football or golf at some schools. He said he would be open to ideas for avoiding that effect, and that he wasn’t sure how Title IX regulations would apply to his proposal.
Bill opponents spoke for nearly 40 minutes, with many having their speaking time reduced from the normal three minutes to as little as 30 seconds because of time constraints.
Several said the hormone treatments some trans girls undergo mean that they aren’t typically bigger and stronger than other girls.
Missouri State High School Activities Association policy allows trans students to apply to play on a team that does not match their birth gender in certain circumstances.
The rules are designed to ensure “competitive fairness”: trans girls must have been on hormone therapy for at least a year to join girls teams, and trans boys are no longer allowed on girls teams once they start receiving hormone therapy.
One parent who spoke at the hearing said the process was “rigorous” when her trans daughter went through it, and it involved submitting proof of consistent gender identity and medical documents.
On the other hand, multiple students who are taking male hormones testified that it would be unfair for girls to compete against them and that they would seem clearly out of place to spectators. One evoked the image of his future self as a bearded, muscular teenager playing on a girls team.
An additional serious concern for some students is that they are “undisclosed” and would be outed as trans if they were forced to play on a team that matched their birth sex, said Kelly, a mother of a trans son who didn’t give her last name in order to protect his identity.
She said there is no evidence that trans women are dominant in sports and that she believes the bill is “about something much deeper and more sinister.”
Another mother told the story of the day her trans daughter “decided to walk away from team sports” at age 7 after she was placed on an all-boys soccer team.
“My daughter simply wanted to show up as herself, to participate in something she loved with a community she belonged to. She was robbed of that opportunity when she was treated differently,” the mother said, asking the committee not to do the same to trans youth statewide.
Another point of discussion at the hearing was whether a constitutional amendment is the best way to handle the issue.
Ross said he chose this route because he wanted the will of the people to be clear.
Rep. Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, argued that it was concerning to trust a human rights issue to public opinion. She said trans students are already in danger and that she has heard anecdotally that the sort of public debate that a proposed amendment could provoke increases danger and harassment.
Suggested alternatives included turning the same language into a bill rather than a proposed amendment, making MSHSAA policy state law, or allowing decisions to be made locally.
Alissa Johnson, a member of Concerned Women for America and the only member of the public to speak in favor of the resolution, said she didn’t trust her local school board in Springfield to listen to parents because they “often don’t want to go against the grain of the mainstream thought in education.”
Rep. Jon Carpenter, D-Kansas City, said he had tried to understand both sides of the issue, but questioned whether the legislature should be the one to address it.
“Caught in the middle are transgender athletes, transgender kids, who have to deal with us having these conversations,” he said. “Which sets it apart, for me, from most issues which could be contentious.”