Florida enacts a law banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ school sports

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law this Tuesday, the first day of Pride Month in 2021, into a bill ban that Transgender women Participate and compete in sports teams schoolchildren feminine. And therefore, transgender youth From this state they will only be able to compete in mixed school sports and sports that are only female and will be limited to those who identify themselves as female in the “gender” section of their birth certificate

The project, which has been the subject of controversy in recent months while being debated in the state legislature, has been defended by DeSantis During a public ceremony in Jacksonville where he signed it, stressing that he aims to Protecting integrity and “justice” in women’s sports. “In Florida, girls will play girls’ sports, and boys will play boys’ sports,” the governor added. Florida Times Union, to conclude that they are going to “Be based on biology, not ideology.”

“In Florida, girls will play girls’ sports, and boys will play boys’ sports.”

project to Face great opposition from NGOs And human rights groupsAlthough before DeSantis signed into law, the major school sports bodies — the Florida High School Athletics Association and the National Athletics Association — had policies regulating the participation of transgender athletes.

The law exists in other countries

In order to defend this new legislation, its advocates cited it famously Connecticut state Not from Florida itself, where the team from Transgender girls have won many sports titles. Along those lines, it’s not the first state to enact a policy of this kind, and Idaho, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi also have legislation that excludes transgender women from women’s sports. This is not the only provision in this draft ban, the document signed by DeSantis also includes everything Sports clubs funded by public institutes and universities, a measure that Republicans have pushed in the legislature for several years.

Shortly after the completion of the press conference where the law was signed, the NGO ‘Human Rights Campaign’She announced that she would file a lawsuit to block the ban. For its part, the organization Florida Equality It also called for a series of anti-law rallies across the state.