Indiana governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, vetoed a bill on Monday that would have banned transgender athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams in K-12 schools.
The bill states in part that “a male, based on a student’s biological sex at birth…may not participate on an athletic team or sport designated under this section as being a female, women’s, or girls’ athletic team or sport.” The Indiana Senate approved the legislation 32-18 earlier this month, with Holcomb saying at the time that “boys should be playing boys sports and girls should be playing girls sports.”
Eleven Republican governors have signed legislation similar to the bill vetoed in Indiana.
However, Holcomb wrote in a letter to lawmakers that the bill in question is open to lawsuits as written, similar to suits filed in other states with laws barring transgender athletes from girls’ sports teams.
Additionally, “the presumption of the policy laid out in H.E.A. 1041 is that there is an existing problem in K-12 sports in Indiana that requires further state government intervention,” Holcomb wrote. “It implies that the goals of consistency and fairness in competitive female sports are not currently being met. After thorough review, I find no evidence to support either claim even if I support the overall goal.”
The Indiana High School Athletics Association already has a policy in place to govern participation of transgender athletes in school sports. However, “not a single case of a male seeking to participate on a female team has completed the process established by IHSAA’s now decade-old policy,” Holcomb wrote.
Indiana state representative Michelle Davis, a Republican and the sponsor of the bill, has said she was personally aware of one female student who was affected by the participation of a transgender athlete in sports.
“Governor Holcomb did the right thing tonight in vetoing a bill that would only cause problems, not solve them, by targeting Indiana's transgender children and making them the targets of exclusion and discrimination in their own schools,” Cathryn Oakley, State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, said after the veto.
In response to Holcomb’s decision, several state lawmakers called to override the governor’s veto. A simple majority is required to overturn vetoes in the Indiana legislature, and Republicans hold a supermajority in the Statehouse.
U.S. Congress members from Indiana also called for a veto override.
“I'm disappointed with Gov. Holcomb's veto of a common sense bill that frankly doesn't go far enough to Save Women's Sports,” Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.) wrote on Twitter. “My hope is that the Indiana General Assembly will meet soon to override the veto and send a message to the rest of the nation that Indiana values women.”
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