According to Fox News, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem plans to introduce legislation that would limit participation in female sports – both at the collegiate and K-12 levels — based on the sex identified on an athlete’s birth certificate, Fox News has learned.
“This is about fairness,” Noem said in a statement provided to Fox News. “Every young woman deserves an equal playing field where she can achieve success, but common sense tells us that males have an unfair physical advantage over females in athletic competition. It is for those reasons that only girls should be competing in girls’ sports.”
Expected Tuesday, the bill would make good on a promise Noem delivered when she controversially vetoed a similar bill from the state legislature. It also raises questions about her previous objection to the state legislature’s restrictions on participation at the collegiate level.
Noem had argued that unlike elementary and secondary school regulations, collegiate restrictions would create an unworkable patchwork for athletic organizations that operate at the national level. Nonetheless, she signed an executive order at the time stating that the board of regents “should” restrict participation in women’s sports – omitting the type of binding language she utilized in another order for the state’s department of education.
Both were designed as purported stopgap measures for the state until the next legislative session. South Dakota’s legislature ultimately rejected the changes she proposed as part of her “style and form” veto, which lawmakers failed to override.
A draft bill obtained by Fox News showed Noem restricting athletic participation based on “biological sex,” which it defines in reference to that which is identified on the student’s birth certificate. The new bill would go beyond Noem’s executive order by mandating, rather than merely advocating, restrictions on collegiate athletic participation.
South Dakota State News reported that “Only female athletes, based on their biological sex, shall participate in any team, sport, or athletic event designated as being for females, women, or girls,” the legislation reads. The legislation describes “biological sex” as “the sex listed on the student’s official birth certificate issued at or near the time of the athlete’s birth.”
“This legislation does not have the problematic provisions that were included in last year’s House Bill 1217,” continued Governor Noem. “Those flawed provisions would have led to litigation for our state, as well as for the families of young South Dakota athletes – male and female alike.”
