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BISMARK — On Tuesday, North Dakota’s legislative commission heard a number of bills that opponents said were discriminatory against transgender people.
The House Welfare Committee has scheduled a day of hearings for seven bills, including two bills restricting transgender girls and women from playing K-12 and college sports.
Proponents say the proposal will ensure fairness in women’s sport. Opponents say the law is discriminatory and harmful to transgender people and will keep major sporting events out of the state.
R-West Fargo Rep. Ben Koppelman is sponsoring House Bills 1249 and 1489, which are similar to the 2021 bill that Gov. Doug Burgum rejected.
But recent rule changes by high school sports regulators in North Dakota may have overwhelmed Koppelman.
The Executive Committee of the North Dakota High School Activity Association last year changed the rules that apply to transgender students after the NCAA made a similar policy change.
The revised policy essentially bans hormone-treated transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports, but the association’s directors said athletes could gain a physical competitive advantage. Schools may allow transgender students to participate in girls’ sports if medical evidence proves that they do not.
Previous regulations allowed transgender girls to play girls’ sports after completing a year of hormone treatment.
The association has taken no position on the proposed legislation.
If lawmakers don’t act, Koppelmann said, “women’s opportunities will be lost by default as society seeks to remove references to biological sex and replace it with social constructs of self-awareness. It will allow for a significant decline,” he said.
“We are essentially allowing the glass ceiling panels to be rebuilt and re-installed over women’s heads in the name of emotion, not science,” he told a House panel. rice field.
“If we don’t do this, women’s track and field will be destroyed,” Patricia Leno, a former University of North Dakota athlete from Bismarck, told a House committee.
Bismarck Psychiatrist Dr. Gabriela Balfe diagnoses and treats teenagers experiencing gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is characterized by the American Psychiatric Association as psychological distress due to a mismatch between one’s gender identity and the gender assigned at birth. She said the state faces more pressing issues than sports, such as mental health and child abuse.
“We’re not talking about it for whatever reason. We’re talking about zero trans athletes in North Dakota,” she told lawmakers. Think twice when you vote for gender bills.”
Tom Strom / Bismarck Tribune
Fargo’s Mia Halvorson, who identifies as transgender, said on a panel hearing from lawmakers in 2021, “Trans people are a ‘promising trend’ and here we are two years from now in our state. “There’s no such thing as an up and coming trend.”
“Our state has no transgender athletes who ‘dominate women’s sports. not,” she said.
Nineteen states, including South Dakota and Montana, have passed laws restricting the participation of transgender students in sports, according to the Associated Press.
Committee chair Robin Wise, R-Harsfield, said last week that his main priority on Tuesday was to keep the heated hearings from boiling over into disparaging or threatening remarks. Stated.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. You have to recognize that both sides are passionate. They believe in their position,” Weisz said. “You have to take the lead on the committee, but both sides deserve a statement.”
The sports bill hearings filled one of the largest committee rooms in the Capitol, but proceeded in an orderly manner.
A Republican-led committee Tuesday held hearings on a bill that would ban gender-affirming treatments and surgeries for minors and limit toilet use by transgender students and inmates.
The committee will eventually consider the merits of each proposal. Wise declined to comment on the bill’s content. In 2021, the longtime lawmaker voted in favor of a bill limiting the participation of transgender girls in women’s sports.
Wise said last Friday that there was redundancy in Congress’ gender-related proposals and wanted similar ideas to be combined into “several bills” for efficiency.
But Wise said she opposes integrating legislation that addresses other issues, such as transgender girls’ participation in sports and gender-affirming treatment.
Weisz said the chances of the commission voting on a bill on gender issues this week were “highly unlikely.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday will hear Senate Bill 2231, introduced by Senator Larry Luick of R-Fairmount.
The bill would make it a discriminatory practice for government agencies to require employees to use a person’s “preferred pronoun” unless required by law. Also, school policies, instructions, or and prohibit professional development.
The 2021 Senate panel has dealt with the sports bill that Burgham rejected. R-Bismarck Chair Diane Larson said she supports such legislation as a matter of equity and is actively addressing what is happening in other states. She said a college sports bill might not be as likely to pass as a K-12 sports bill.
Opponents in 2021 said the sports bill was discriminatory against transgender girls and anti-sports tourism. ‘ said.
She added, “I’m not in favor of legalizing pronouns, but some people think we should, so we’ll listen.”
“It’s hard to have some of these conversations because people are so emotionally invested,” Larson said.
The Senate on Friday rejected a bill that would ban transgender residents from using gender identity-conforming pronouns in schools and other publicly funded entities.
House Majority Leader Mike Lefoe (R-Dickinson) said it was “the duty of all of us to better understand what transgender people are going through”, but said “the controversial It expressed support for legislators to introduce legislation that could “breathe” if “public policy needs to be fine-tuned in certain ways.” He said he supported the 2021 Transgender Sports Bill.
“I have no problem with that being dealt with in the law, so there are (a) clear and concise laws,” Lefor said.
House Minority Leader Josh Boschee (D-Fargo) asked the bill’s sponsors during debates on the floor whether they had interacted with transgender people and their families to learn about their needs. He said he planned to ask
“There are thousands of transgender or nonbinary people in our state,” he said. “You may not know them because they live full and authentic lives. The fetishism my colleagues have for gender identity and sexual orientation Disturb.”
He said he was “fearing” that some bills would be passed, and was seeing “organized efforts” statewide.
Brugham spokesman Mike Nowatsky declined to comment on gender-related legislation.
The Republican governor said in his 2021 veto message on a bill restricting the participation of transgender girls in sports that the law would “make the state less local by creating a ban with myriad unforeseen consequences.” Unnecessarily pushing into the problem,” he wrote.
Jacques Dura is a reporter for the Bismarck Tribune. Jeremy Turley is a reporter for the Forum News Service.
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