Though Florida Governor Ron DeSantis never passes up an opportunity to be cruel in the cruelest way possible, signing a bill banning trans women and girls from playing sports on the first day of Pride month is a lowly thing to even for a person who slithers for a living.
According to Politico, the new bill means that trans athletes cannot play on any women’s or girl’s teams starting in middle school and through college, even those that are just for fun:
“Dubbed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” Florida’s new law establishes that women’s sports from middle school through college, including intramurals and club teams, are closed to males based on the biological sex listed on a student’s birth certificate. The measure has been widely celebrated by Republicans for “protecting the integrity” of girls’ athletics.”
In order to justify excluding women and girls from competing on teams intended for women and girls, DeSantis predictably cited a Connecticut lawsuit in which a girl who couldn’t run very fast sued over not being all that good and lost:
“DeSantis, flanked by student athletes from the Jacksonville-based Trinity Christian Academy on stage, streamed a video of transgender athlete Terry Miller winning a race in 2019, then introduced one of her competitors, Selina Soule, to address the audience. Soule, a Connecticut high school track athlete who has been outspoken against allowing transgender athletes to compete, told the crowd her experience losing to transgender girls was ‘frustrating’ and ‘demoralizing.’”
What is more frustrating and demoralizing than a kid who didn’t win a race is the fact that Florida now joins 20 other states in disallowing thousands of women and girls the chance to even join a team.