Anti-Transgender Alabama Law Forces Men to Play in Their Own League
It’s the latest state to protect women’s sports at the college level.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation this week stating that biological men cannot participate on women’s college sports teams, and vice versa. The law, which passed with overwhelming majorities in both the Alabama House and Senate, builds upon an existing 2021 law that regulated K–12 sports teams.
“If you’re a biological male, you are not going to be competing in women’s and girls’ sports in Alabama. It’s about fairness, plain and simple,” Ivey tweeted after signing HB 261.
✍️: I just signed HB261 to protect women’s sports in public colleges and universities.
If you’re a biological male, you are not going to be competing in women’s and girl’s sports in Alabama. It’s about fairness, plain and simple. #alpolitics
— Governor Kay Ivey (@GovernorKayIvey) May 30, 2023
Alabama is one of 20 states that regulate the participation of transgender athletes through K–12 education, at the college level, or both. As the issue of men participating in women’s sports continues to gain prominence, voters are seeing the appeal of commonsense laws like the one just passed in Alabama.
The Associated Press reported: “The latest sports bill was approved with lopsided support in both chambers, passing 26-4 in the Alabama Senate and 83-5 in the House of Representatives. More than a dozen House members abstained from the vote.”
“Lopsided support” is an odd phrase to use when support for the bill exceeded a supermajority in both legislative bodies. “Overwhelming support” would be more appropriate — but it would also convey the massive popularity of the new law, which would run afoul of the mainstream media’s agenda.
What’s more, while the Senate vote split along party lines — there are 27 Republicans and 8 Democrats — the bill gained bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. With 77 Republicans and 27 Democrats, a final tally of 83–5 means that a handful of Democrats chose to fight back against the insanity of men competing in women’s sports.
The text of HB 261 focuses mainly on the physical differences between men and women. It recognizes that “separate and sex-specific sports teams” provide female athletes with “equal opportunities to compete in sports,” given that men generally have a physical advantage.
“On average, biological males are bigger, faster, stronger, and more physically powerful than their biological female counterparts,” the bill reads. “This results in a significant sports performance gap between the sexes.… Testosterone suppression in biological males does not result in a level playing field between biological males and biological female athletes.”
While transgender activists lambaste this law as part of a “systematic attack against LGBTQ+ people,” it’s really just about fairness and injury prevention — and the law says as much. The bill protects women’s sports, protects women in sports, and prevents scholarship opportunities for female athletes from being snatched up by men.
Laws like the one passed in Alabama are increasingly popular, and spokeswomen like Riley Gaines, who competed against William “Lia” Thomas last year, are bringing greater visibility to the issue. (RELATED: Killing Women’s Sports)
Gaines has become an outspoken advocate for protecting women’s sports, and she recently told Fox News that she has been able to break through the traditional left–right divide on this issue.
“The amount of support that I’ve had from liberal women who … consider themselves feminists is amazing. These are women who are sick of their own party,” Gaines said.
When men compete in women’s sports, as Thomas did, it becomes clear that women are the ones disenfranchised by pro-transgender policies. The question facing progressive feminists today is whether they will indulge the mental gymnastics of incorporating men pretending to be women into feminism.
Through their representatives, the people of Alabama have decided that they want no part of today’s gender madness — they just want to keep men out of women’s sports.
Mary Frances Myler is a postgraduate fellow with the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.
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