During a late night legislative session last week, Ohio Republicans passed their version of the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which includes a provision that student athletes in the state suspected of being trans would be subject to genital inspections, according to ABC affiliate News 5 Cleveland.
The bill was not initially supposed to be up for consideration during last week’s session, which took place on the first day of Pride Month. But Republican lawmakers tacked the language from HB 61 onto a completely unrelated bill, HB 151, which changes the policies surrounding the Ohio Teacher Residency Program, a program meant to mentor young educators.
As with many other bills of its kind, HB 61 mandates all school sports teams, including those at private colleges, to be separated by gender, with trans girls specifically targeted as not being allowed to participate in “female” sports teams. However, the bill also adds that if an athlete’s sex is “disputed,” they must provide a signed physician’s statement with proof of “internal and external reproductive anatomy,” testosterone levels, and an “analysis of the participant’s genetic makeup.” Individuals who are “deprived of athletic opportunity” or suffer “direct or indirect harm” as a result of trans inclusion (perceived or otherwise) will be entitled to take legal action against schools that violate the act.
While these invasive requirements would be bad enough if they were only affecting trans children, the vagueness of the language could allow for anyone suspected of being transgender (or intersex, for that matter) to be forced to “prove” their sex. As many have noted before, such accusations would likely affect Black athletes and other athletes of color first and foremost, regardless of whether they’re cis or trans. If an athlete felt slighted by another athlete, the first could hypothetically accuse her rival of being trans. That accusation would then either force the athlete to undergo invasive sex testing, or give up on trying to participate altogether.
In other words, the act, if passed, could create a chilling effect that could affect not only trans athletes but also cis ones as well, according to Maria Bruno, the legislative policy director for LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Ohio. "Women will sometimes have more testosterone completely naturally than folks would prefer a transgender athlete to have," she said. "So they actually are functioning at a lower threshold for what they are allowed to have hormonally to compete." Bruno told News 5 Cleveland that the Ohio High School Athletic Association already has laws in place regarding transgender athletic participation, which requires trans girls to be on HRT for at least one year, or to demonstrate “no physical or physiological advantages.” That policy has been in place for seven years.
Pundits and advocates have reacted to the bill with a mixture of condemnation and bewilderment. “The politicians who claim to be oh, so concerned about kids sure don’t hesitate to sign their death warrants,” wrote USA Today columnist Nancy Armour, who claimed the bill was “only about cruelty.” Meanwhile, Washington Post columnist Alyssa Rosenberg called the bill “a new low.” Ohio state representative Beth Liston called the legislation “just plain sick” in a press release.
Genital examinations were considered in an early version of the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021, though these requirements were taken out of the bill before he signed it into law, making Ohio’s version of the legislation one of the more extreme iterations seen thus far.
Just as with every other state that has passed such a law, there are very few trans girl athletes competing on school sports teams in Ohio — in fact, there’s exactly one, a 16-year-old named Ember, according to News 5 Cleveland.
“There are not scores of girls' dreams being crushed, there is one child trying to play on their high school sports team,” Liston told News 5 Cleveland. “This is a made-up controversy and this amendment is state-sanctioned bullying against one child.”
For her part, Ember told MSNBC that the bill was “terrifying.”
“I just want to be myself and stay on the team,” Ember said. “I made friends and I have such a great community there. I don’t want to have to leave that.”
The Ohio Senate will consider the bill when it convenes in November, per The Advocate.
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