A bill that would dictate on which sports teams transgender athletes can compete in public schools was declared all but dead on Wednesday by Rep. Harold Dutton, the Public Education Committee chair who presided over an emotionally charged debate over it a day earlier.
The bill drew criticism from more than 1,000 employers across the state and the NCAA, which threatened to cancel future sports championships in the state if it were enacted.
Dutton, a Houston Democrat, told Hearst Newspapers the bill didn’t have the votes to pass his committee, which is made up of six Democrats and seven Republicans.
“That bill is probably not going to make it out of committee,” Dutton said. “We just don’t have the votes for it … But I promised the author that I’d give him a hearing, and we did.”
The bill’s author, Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, said Wednesday that he would still like to see a vote.
“I believe this bill is critically important to protect fair play in women’s sports,” Hefner said. “I appreciate Chairman Dutton giving this bill a hearing and believe it deserves an up or down vote.”
Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Kingwood, the influential Republican who indicated he would not support the legislation at Tuesday’s hearing, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While anything can happen in the final weeks of the 2021 legislative session — the language could be tacked onto another bill or the same bill could be sent to another committee, for example — the standstill marks a major roadblock for Republicans pushing it.
“The first thing you have to realize is that 99 percent of that bill is already in the UIL (University Interscholastic League) rules,” Dutton said.
Hefner had said Tuesday the matter was too important to leave up to the board of the UIL, which oversees K-12 sports in Texas.
The league already does not allow transgender athletes to compete if the sex assignment on their birth certificate does not match the gender of the team on which they desire to compete. House Bill 4042 would make it state law that the birth certificate must be from “at or near the time of the student’s birth.”
“What we’re going to do is probably talk to the UIL folks about them actually doing whatever needs to be done, if there’s anything that needs to be done, to get this sort of taken care of,” Dutton said, adding when asked his position on the bill: “Every bill, the first question I ask is what is the problem that it’s trying to cure and whether the cure fits the problem.”
Angela Hale, senior adviser of Equality Texas, an LGBT rights advocacy group, said the group was pleased to hear the bill likely won’t make it to the House floor, but she added there are still about 30 bills in total this session that target the Texans of the demographic.
“We’re grateful that members listened to the voices of families and real experts yesterday in Chairman Dutton’s hearing,” Hale said. “We ask the legislature, and especially leaders in the Texas House, to once again reject this unnecessary and harmful legislation and focus on issues that unite us as Texans.”
Wesley Story, communications manager for the liberal advocacy group Progress Texas, agreed, saying banning transgender athletes is “cruel” and deprives them of “an essential part of childhood.”
“Defeating this discriminatory bill is a huge win for equality in our state, but unfortunately, this battle is not over,” Story said. “Republicans have manufactured controversy around transgender youth in sports and are also targeting life-saving, gender-affirming health care with other bills making their way through the Capitol. Texans must continue to show up and fight to protect trans kids by opposing dangerous anti-trans legislation.”
More than 80 people testified on the bill Tuesday night — a version of passed out of the Texas Senate last week — and most speakers were against it.
Similar to the 2017 debate over transgender access to public bathrooms, the bill prompted a backlash from many in the business community who have urged the state not to adopt it, including tech giants Amazon, Facebook, Dell, Intel and Silicon Labs.
A coalition called Texas Competes, which is made up of more than 1,450 Texas employers, chambers of commerce, tourism bureaus and industry associations, on Monday warned at a news conference that anti-LGBTQ legislation will drive out potential new employers and employees.
Earlier this month, the NCAA, whose own policy allows transgender athletes to participate without limitation, issued a warning that it is watching the legislation and threatened to relocate championship games now planned for Texas to other places that are “safe, healthy and free of discrimination.”
It comes as a record number of anti-transgender bills has been filed in statehouses throughout the country, according to a CNN analysis.
No documented problems
Eli, a 17-year-old high school senior and transgender boy athlete who asked that his last named not be published for fear of bullying, told the committee he was forced to compete on the girl’s wrestling team and ridiculed by fellow athletes and coaches. He said he also endured injuries that seemed purposeful while playing the sport, including having his nose broken. Some girls refused to wrestle him.
“Trans students should be able to play just like anybody else,” he said. “How are we different from other kids? We are the same. We want the same thing.”
Rep. Hefner clashed with Democratic committee members as he tried to explain the problem the bill seeks to address.
“There’s been a growing concern about the safety of female athletes when it comes to biologically born males competing in female sports,” Hefner said. “This has raised significant safety concerns for the physical well-being of female athletes as well as a threat this poses to all that has been accomplished by women in women’s athletics.”
UIL Deputy Director Dr. Jamey Harrison testified Tuesday, however, that he could not give a number of incidents of transgender athletes causing a problem and that he receives less than one phone call a day about such issues.
Amended birth certificates do not always indicate that they have been modified. If the bill passes, the onus for determining an athlete’s birth sex assignment would be on local school administrations, Harrison said.
Huberty, who is chair of the UIL advisory board, said the group’s existing rule sufficiently addresses the issue.
“I’m trying to figure out why we continue to pass bills that we don’t need bills for,” Huberty said.
Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, repeatedly asked Hefner and supporters of the bill to provide examples of documented cases of transgender athletes causing a problem in Texas schools. None provided any.
Yet, Talarico said, surveys have shown that 42 percent of transgender children in Texas have seriously considered suicide, and LGBTQ students have reported attempting suicide nearly five times as often as their non-LGBTQ peers.
“Representative Hefner, which of those sounds like a bigger problem to tackle with legislation in this building?” Talarico asked.
Hefner asked about the mental health of a girl who did not receive an athletic scholarship because of a transgender athlete.
“I think we can take care of everybody here,” Hefner said. “When we’re talking about transgender individuals, and I’m concerned about the mental health and the physical health of every individual, all of our students, but let’s not forget these girls that have put the work in as well.”
“I hear that,” Talarico said. “I guess my concern would be one is a hypothetical problem that we have no documented cases of and then one is an enormous problem that we have lots of empirical evidence for.”
taylor.goldenstein@chron.com
