Louisiana Is Now the 18th State to Save Girls and Women’s Sports

Louisiana is the 18th state to pass legislation preserving girls and women’s sports for actual females.

Senate Bill 44, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, requires that girls and women’s sports teams, at elementary schools, high schools and colleges that receive state funding, are only open to biological females.

The measure to save girls sports passed the Louisiana House with an overwhelming vote of 72 to 21 and the Senate with a vote of 32 to 6.

Louisiana Family Forum, a Focus on the Family ally, released a press statement applauding the Fairness Act and explaining why it was necessary:

This law protects female athletes from having to compete against biological men. Women had to fight for a competitive playing field and should not be sidelined in their own arena. Allowing males to exploit women’s sports reverses 50 years of progress, ignores biological reality, and discriminates against all women.

Women in Louisiana deserve a level playing field. Allowing males to take over women’s sports destroys competition, harms women, and dashes the hopes and dreams of women athletes.

Governor John Bel Edwards vetoed a similar measure last year. This year he chose to neither sign the bill nor veto it, allowing it to pass into law.

In a news conference on Monday, Edwards acknowledged that any veto of the measure protecting girls sports would likely be overturned. He opposed SB 44, but said:

However, it was obvious to me after two years, when both the House and the Senate passed it by more than a two-thirds vote, and with conversations I had with legislators … that Senate Bill 44 was going to become law whether or not I signed it or vetoed it.

He said the bill sends a strong message to some sexually confused children, saying:

Whether it’s intended or not, the effect is to tell, to send a strong message to at least some of these young people [with sexual identity confusion], that they shouldn’t be who they think they are, who they believe they are, who they know that they are. And I find that very distressing. I do believe that we can be better than that.

Though this sounds caring, it is misguided thinking.

First, where is the concern for girls and women?

In a wide variety of sports, girls and women are losing places on teams, opportunities to succeed, and privacy and safety in showers, restrooms and locker rooms.

Allowing males in girls and women’s sports and private places devalues and marginalizes women.

“Woman” becomes meaningless if any man can claim to be one.

And second, it is not compassionate to affirm children in a “gender” delusion. It leads to horrific results, as children are steered toward “transitioning,” and their bodies and lives are permanently damaged, disrupted and disfigured by drugs, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries.

Many who have followed this deceptive path come to regret it deeply.

We know, from science, experience and Scripture, that humans come in two types: male and female.

But our children are being sexualized and confused by modern “gender” ideology that says those categories don’t mean anything – while insisting, incoherently, that a person can shift from one category to the other.

Gender ideology also insists that male and female are not real, they are “social constructs.” But at the same time, it says you must believe a person who claims to be any one of the hundreds of made-up “gender identities.”

Children are born either male or female. No child is “born into the wrong body.” There are no “transgender” five-year-olds. In fact, no one is transgender.

It is a completely subjective ideological construct.

Our goal in raising children should be to help boys achieve and embrace a solid sense of masculinity and to assist girls in receiving and enjoying a healthy sense of femininity.

In the policy arena, our goal should be to preserve the scientific and God-given realities of male and female and to protect children from “gender ideology.” We should work to protect girls and women’s safety and privacy, and we should fight for parents, counselors and pastors who help children struggling with sexual identity confusion.

We are grateful that Louisiana joined the groundswell of states standing up to gender activists and protecting girls and women’s sports.

Related articles and resources:

The Daily Citizen:

#SaveGirlsSports – New Campaign Launched by Family Policy Alliance
‘Save Girls Sports’ Bills Dealt Two Setbacks in One Day
‘Save Women’s Sports’ Bill Wins Veto Override in Indiana, Passes Legislature in Louisiana
South Carolina Latest State to Enact ‘Save Women’s Sports’ Law

Focus on the Family:

Becoming the Woman God Made Me to Be
Helping Children with Gender Identity Confusion
The Journey Back to My True Identity (Part One and Part Two)
Transgender Resources