'State-sanctioned bullying': Advocates blast Missouri GOP move to exclude transgender kids

The Senate Education Committee debated legislation Tuesday that would prevent further review of transgender athletes participating in high school and collegiate sports.

Sponsored by state Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Branson, the bill aims to remove the current end date of a 2023 state law requiring transgender students to participate in sports under their biological sex. It has an expiration date of August 2027, and this bill would remove that provision. This bill passed the House in a 98-37 vote, directly along party lines.

Seitz told the committee that his bill would “protect girls and women from a possible unfair advantage in women’s sports. When scientific, biological differences between the sexes are ignored or not taken into consideration, women and girls suffer, becoming less than rather than equal.”

The NCAA prohibits biological males from competing in female sports. Biological males can practice on the women’s team, and any student athlete can participate and compete on the men’s team.

Seitz claimed that transgender women participating in women’s sports have won nearly 900 medals. This refers to a report by an independent human rights expert. The medals are listed on a website that claims transgender women do not belong in cisgender sports.

The website says the number of medals, records, scholarships or other opportunities that transgender women have won over cisgender women at 4,799. At the high school level, there were just two instances where a transgender woman placed higher than all other competitors. The website is self-reported.

Jamie Sgarro, an attorney for the Missouri ACLU and a transgender man, told the committee that this is a non-issue that Missourians are not worried about.

“This legislation is not really about sports. It is about erasing and excluding trans people from participation in all aspects of public life,” Sgarro said.

Stevie Miller, a non-binary transgender man, stepped up in front of the committee members clad in a jacket with “Be not afraid” painted on the back in the colors of the transgender flag.

“This is state-sanctioned bullying, allowing the exclusion of some children. You wouldn’t dare exclude a disabled child from participation,” he said. “How is an androgynous child any different?”

Miller, one of the founders of West Plains Pride, said that transgender and cisgender women perform at about the same level.

Following Miller’s testimony, Education Committee Chair Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, questioned having transgender people in the locker room with cisgender people.

“So you think it’s OK for 13-year-old girls to be subjected to a boy with a penis in the shower at a locker room at school,” Brattin asked.

Miller retorted that there is no evidence of that being a requirement in Missouri.

“If you release that information to me, absolutely I’ll believe you, and I’ll change my mind,” Miller said.

Cammie Storm, a transgender woman from West Plains, said legislators should not make the law permanent.

“I have lived in environments where people believe they have the right to control who I was, where identity was something to be corrected,” Storm said. “When the state passes laws like this, it sends a message that those systems were right, and that has consequences.”

Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director of PROMO, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said that out of the 510,000 athletes in the NCAA, fewer than 10 are transgender.

“This is not what Missourians want. This is not what our state needs,” Erker-Lynch said, “and to be honest, it is deeply misogynistic and sexist to believe that any man could beat any woman.”