Texas state lawmakers are moving quickly to address President Joe Biden's executive order allowing transgender student athletes to play sports of the gender they choose.
Schools that don't comply risk losing federal funding.
Many women's rights groups also oppose Biden's order, claiming it essentially shuts out girls altogether.
“It's about preserving the integrity and solidify provisions that women have been able to successfully compete all the way up and down to the Olympics, careers in sports hang in the balance,” says state Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) who introduced SB 373, which would require student athletes under the UIL to stick with the gender on the birth certificate.
He is a man of faith, but insists it has nothing to do with being anti-gay or transphobic. Perry used his own daughter as an example.
“She spent summers on AAU basketball and select teams and doing the things she needed to do,” he says. “To have someone come in during their junior year of high school that's from the opposite sex – arguably stronger, faster and better – to steal that from them, that's just not right,” he says.
Perry's bill follows one passed by the Texas Senate in 2017 in response to a biologically female wrestler who identified as male, and was taking testosterone to compete at a high-level.
“It's unfair. It's not right. Through synthetic manipulation of the body that you're going to outproduce or outperform someone of the competing sex and get credit for it,” he says.