The Alaska Legislature is fast approaching its constitutional 121-day limit, putting a premium on the remaining days and hours of the session to get key issues such as energy, education and the budget across the finish line.
But on Thursday, the House ground to a halt when Republicans brought their legislation seeking to restrict trans students’ participation in school sports, running headlong into a 90-plus amendment roadblock put up by the bipartisan Minority Coalition. It was a huge effort that paralleled the sort of work that goes into the state’s operating budget, which typically takes many hours, if not days, to work through.
The legislation, proposed by extreme-right Eagle River Republican Jamie Allard, would single out trans girls and prevent them from playing on girls’ teams. While the Board of Education adopted similar regulations last year, those only affected high school sports. Allard’s bill would also reach into college athletics.
The bill, realistically, faces zero chances of becoming law this year. Senate leadership has already signaled opposition to the deeply divisive legislation. Even if the Senate was on board, the dwindling days make it near-impossible to clear the legislative process.
It might not even get out of the House.
The House only managed to make it through one amendment by the House Minority Coalition, a process that took more than an hour as legislators battled back and forth over whether they needed to recognize that trans people have rights. The amendment, by Anchorage Democratic Rep. Andrew Gray, would have added 16 words to the bill:
“Transgender and gender nonconforming people have the same constitutional rights and protections as all other citizens.”
Backers of the amendment said it was important to recognize trans rights when so much of the discussion around trans students’ participation in sports has singled them out and treated them as if they are bad actors, a point that Rep. Allard has frequently repeated. Many said the messaging that drives these kinds of bills has put an unwanted spotlight on young people who already face higher rates of suicide and self-harm than their peers.
Anchorage independent Rep. Alyse Galvin gave a particularly impassioned plea to her colleagues, asking them to have an open mind and be willing to learn about trans children. She read out an excerpt from a Legislative Legal memo that said the bill is likely an unconstitutional infringement of the privacy rights of trans students and, at a minimum, would expose the children to “embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety and, in more severe instances, subject a student to harassment.” She said it rang true based on her own experience with a trans child.
“We all fear what we don’t know,” she said. “We just do. It’s human. I’ve read the bible about this, and I’ve really tried hard to learn. We did the therapy, and my child had to get medicine because of all the anxiety. That’s real. I would agree that this underlying bill does harm that this amendment does lighten. It gives them meaning, it makes them feel more whole.”
But Republicans rejected the notion of affirming the rights of trans people, arguing that it was a redundant effort when all people have rights. While several insisted that they didn’t hate trans people, some conservative Republicans suggested that acknowledging the rights of trans people would come at the cost of the rights of cisgender women.
Other Republicans suggested some level of discrimination in sports is warranted, noting that uncoordinated people or people in wheelchairs don’t have a constitutional right to play on sports teams. The government, they argued, has a compelling interest in discriminating against uncoordinated people, people with disabilities and trans girls.
“If you’re born uncoordinated and you get cut from a varsity team, do you have a constitutional right to be included?” said Rep. Ben Carpenter, R-Nikiski. “If you’re confined to a wheelchair because of some accident, unfortunate and out of your control, are we allowed to discriminate against that person from participating in an able-bodied sport out of fairness for the rest of the sport? If we’re not able to discriminate based on biological sex and the differences between the two sexes, for the vast majority of the human race, then it seems to me we shouldn’t be able to discriminate based on capabilities. Why even have a tryout for varsity and junior varsity in our high schools?”
Others suggested that student-athletes waive their right to privacy the moment they step onto the field (they do not).
“It’s voluntary, so the right to privacy is out the window. If you volunteer for something, you volunteer for the conditions,” said Big Lake Republican Rep. Kevin McCabe. “The right to privacy in our constitution? If you want to activate that, then don’t volunteer for sports. You won’t have your privacy violated.”
Members of the House Minority Coalition fought fiercely back, frequently receiving chidings from House Republicans over accusations that the legislation was intentionally singling out trans students and doing them harm. Several Coalition members retorted that it may not be the intention of legislators to do that, but that was clearly the impact of the bill.
Others countered the suggestion that affirming that trans people have rights was redundant by arguing that there should be no harm in affirming rights.
“I’m OK with the redundancy,” said Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage. “I love affirming that everybody has constitutional rights … We have talked so much about mental health and how it is a crisis for youth, and part of those impacts is because of the way we talk about trans kids and trans youth. I’m OK with being redundant and affirming their constitutional rights.”
The amendment failed on a 19-21 vote with all Republicans in the House Majority as well as extreme-right Rep. David Eastman voting against the measure. The House Minority Coalition was joined by non-Republican Majority members Reps. Bryce Edgmon, Neal Foster and CJ McCormick in voting for the amendment.
Following the amendment, the House Minority Coalition moved a second amendment that would have allowed trans girls to participate on girls’ chess teams, likely a sign of what was to come over the course of nearly 100 amendments in the queue. Before that debate could get started, however, Rep. Edgmon moved that they table the bill to a later date.
Following a long break, which included a closed-door meeting of the Republican-led House Majority, the House voted to save the rest of the debate for Saturday, with several Majority Republicans supporting the motion.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
