Trump thanks Sage Steele while banning trans women from team sports
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in female sports. The measure, called the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order,” is the fourth executive order targeting transgender people the president has signed since taking office Jan. 20.
Three years ago, Indiana lawmakers banned transgender girls from playing in girls’ sports at the K-12 level. Now Republicans are advancing a bill to extend that ban to college sports.
But this time, some Democrats have joined them.
House Bill 1041 would require state and private colleges to designate sports teams as for women and girls or men and boys or coed, prohibit transgender women from playing on women or girls teams, and allow for athletes to sue if the college violates the policy and they feel they’ve been harmed by it.
It contains virtually identical language to the bill that Gov. Eric Holcomb vetoed three legislative sessions ago, and has the same bill number and authors as its 2022 counterpart, but it’s repurposed for higher ed.
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The supermajority Republican legislature overturned Holcomb’s veto back then. But this year, they have Gov. Mike Braun, who has expressed as part of his campaign platform that he’s opposed to transgender girls participating in girls sports.
The House education committee moved the bill forward by a 12-1 vote Wednesday. Three Democrats joined Republicans in approving it. Only Democratic Rep. Vernon Smith voted against it.
Whiteland Republican Michelle Davis said this is about ensuring a “safe and even playing field” for female athletes.
“We will be protecting the integrity of female sports at the collegiate level,” she said.
It’s in keeping with President Donald Trump’s agenda on the issue. Davis joined the president last week in D.C. when he signed an executive order banning transgender women from college sports nationally. The next day, the NCAA, which previously left it up to each sport to decide eligibility requirements for transgender athletes, changed its policy to prohibit transgender women from competing in college women’s sports.
Indianpolis Democratic Rep. Ed Delaney offered an amendment to the bill, which the committee rejected, that would simply defer to the NCAA’s policy, arguing that the state needn’t get involved in this.
“We don’t have to do any of this,” he said. “It’s overreach and virtue signaling, and it’s just a waste of our time.”
Yet, he voted in favor of the bill, as did Reps. Tonya Pfaff and Sheila Klinker. In 2022, all House Democrats voted against the bill.
At the time, Democrats joined groups like the ACLU and LGBTQ advocacy groups in calling the bill discriminatory toward transgender people.
Today, Delaney pointed to the very small number of actual instances where transgender people are attempting to play college sports. In testimony on Capitol Hill in December, NCAA president Charlie Baker said he was only aware of 10 such athletes across the nation.
Delaney told IndyStar he sees this entire conversation as a “major distraction” from more important issues.
“That doesn’t mean we need to stop being who we are or stop talking to our doctor, but it does mean that we have to recognize that there’s a massive opposition created on this particular narrow issue,” he said. “I want to get back on the bigger topic: what can we do to be fair to people who are transgender? And whether a few kids get to play sports is not important in that scale.”
In other words, he sees the treatment of transgender people in society as a separate and important issue that happens to be colliding with the belief that women should be treated fairly in sports.
“I have made the message that I don’t want to beat up on transgender people,” he said. “But the other argument has to be respected, too, which is that apparently there’s a great deal of concern among female athletes.”
Supporters of the bill traveled near and far to testify before the education committee on Wednesday that they believe transgender women threaten the opportunities cisgender women have in sports. They included a representative from conservative think tank Alliance Defending Freedom; an athlete from Connecticut whom Alliance Defending Freedom is representing in a lawsuit against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference over its policy allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports; and Indiana basketball Hall of Fame inductee Nikki Cerbone.
An IU volleyball player, Elle Patterson, said when she previously played at San Jose State University, she felt violated because she undressed in a locker room in the presence of a person she did not know was transgender.
Opponents like the ACLU of Indiana and GenderNexus argue that the bill opens up the trans community to further harassment, as well as any collegiate athlete to have their gender disputed.
“You don’t have to watch the pain that occurs from folks that are impacted by your legislation,” GenderNexus executive director Emma Vosicky said. “We do have to watch it and live with it.”
That three of his colleagues voted in favor of the bill surprised Rep. Smith, of Gary, he told IndyStar. He said he decided to vote against the bill because he doesn’t see any evidence of a problem, other than a few isolated cases, and this only adds anguish to a group that is already struggling.
“They think that people are changing their sex just to become proficient in the sport. That’s not the case,” he said. “These kids have tremendous struggles when they’re doing this. It’s not what they suspect.”
Klinker told IndyStar she voted against the measure in 2022 because she felt the decisions should best be left to outside athletic associations, like the NCAA. But since such groups have waffled over time on their policies, it may be time for the state to provide guidance.
The former teacher said she’s worked with students at Purdue University who are transgender and also don’t think trans women should play women’s sports.
“I think there’s more open feeling toward transgender folks and transgender students, but not when it comes to sports,” she said.
A spokesperson for Pfaff said she was unavailable Wednesday.
After the committee hearing, Vosicky was dismayed at the state of the discourse.
“I wake up every morning knowing there’s a target on my back,” she said. “And these legislators are not making me feel any better.”
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer atkdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on X: @kayla_dwyer17.