Undaunted by an outpouring of public testimony, warnings of unconstitutionality, a mountain of amendments or the notion that there are better ways to spend the last few days of the legislative session, House Republicans pushed ahead with their bill to ban trans girls from playing on girls teams from elementary school to the college level.
The bipartisan House Minority Coalition attempted as near a filibuster as possible under legislative rules, filing nearly 90 amendments on the measure. While it didn’t stop the bill from clearing the chamber on a narrow 22-18 vote, the effort took up the entirety of Saturday and part of Sunday as members pleaded with Republicans to think about the larger message they were sending to young and LGBTQ Alaskans.
Many argued that the legislation was an overreaching solution in search of a problem, pointing out that in Alaska’s history, there has only been one trans athlete. There are currently none. Minority Coalition legislators argued that the bill and the surrounding messaging send a clear message to trans kids that they’re not welcome.
“While it may not be anyone’s intent, the impact of your positive vote on this bill is blanket discrimination and cruelty against the LGBTQ community,” said Rep. Jennie Armstrong, D-Anchorage, who recalled her decision to leave the church after coming under attack by adults for being different. “This vote is that same galvanizing moment for them. They are going to become voters, they are going to become donors, and they are going to be the future leaders of Alaska, making history in their own right. They will never forget the message that our votes send today. I am begging you, everyone in this room, to please rise above dogma and dog whistles and choose to send a message of love.”
The legislation, by extreme-right Eagle River Republican Rep. Jamie Allard, would single out trans girls, prohibiting them from playing on girls’ teams and opening an avenue for people to sue districts and challenge female athletes suspected of being trans. All other students, including trans boys, would be permitted to play according to their gender identity and wouldn’t be subject to gender investigations. It’s raised constitutional issues — likely violating equal protections and Alaska’s privacy clause — and is a non-starter in the Senate, where even if leadership hadn’t already said it’s dead on arrival, there simply aren’t the hours left to get it across the finish line.
The supporters of the measure argue that the state has a compelling interest in discriminating against trans girls, arguing essentially that girls are inherently weaker and less skilled than trans girls and would be put at an unfair disadvantage.
“In sports, biology is what matters,” said extreme-right Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer.
As several legislators argued, pointing to examples in other states that have passed these kinds of laws, the most likely targets of this legislation are not trans athletes but cisgender girls who don’t look feminine or white enough. In Utah, a girl and her family have faced harassment and threats after a Republican member of the state’s Board of Education falsely accused her of being trans, later writing that she did so because of the girl’s “larger build” and wrote that it was “normal” to question children’s gender identity because of the “push to normalize transgenderism.”
Under the bill, schools are left to determine who’s trans and who’s not. The bill mentions birth certificates as one possible method of verifying that, but it does not explicitly rule out the possibility of physical inspections of students. Under the bill, those inspections could happen without notifying a parent, which is something that the House Minority tried and failed to fix via amendment. That was a sticking point for Anchorage Democratic Rep. Andy Josephson, who brought up Republicans’ rejection of the amendment during the closing debate.
“Amendment 27 says before a gender inspection is done, parents will get notice,” he said. “How am I supposed to believe that people on this floor support parental rights when they wouldn’t support that amendment? It doesn’t make any rational sense to me unless it somehow forces them to admit, geez, that would concede these are complicated issues.”
Interestingly, Rep. Josephson and some other members of the House Minority Coalition conceded that they had misgivings about some trans athletes competing against girls but argued that a more nuanced approach that takes into account the athletic abilities of the student and the kind of sport they’re playing. There’s no reason, he argued, that the rules should also apply to chess. He said there’s also probably no reason to be worried about a trans girl who is just so-so at basketball.
“It takes what is a paper cut on a finger and says eliminate the finger,” he said. “That’s the problem with this bill. It says don’t use a scalpel, use a maul. This bill is about destroying an ant with a bulldozer. It’s a solution in search of a problem.”
The bill goes to the Senate, where it is not expected to be taken up in any form before the Legislature runs into the 121-day constitutional deadline on Wednesday.
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.
