Members of LGBTQ+ organizations say they are bracing for more expansive restrictions aimed at them when lawmakers return to the Capitol for this year’s legislative session.
Republican lawmakers have vowed to pass legislation this year requiring public schools to limit participation in girls’ and women’s sports to student-athletes listed as female on their birth certificate.
The promised legislation follows recommendations released last month by a state Senate panel created by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones on girls’ and women’s sports.
Some LGBTQ+ rights advocates say they worry efforts to regulate transgender people could go further, such as limiting restroom access across the state or further limiting minors’ access to gender-affirming care.
“The Senate continues to lead on efforts to protect women’s sports and all of the work they put into competing and becoming elite athletes,” Jones said in a statement released days after the panel released its recommendations. “Ensuring that in the future, females participating in Georgia sports are protected at any level will be a priority during the 2025 session.”
Last summer, Jones announced the panel the day after Algerian boxer Imane Khelif’s gender was questioned following her defeat of an Italian boxer in last year’s Paris Olympics.
Khelif is not transgender, but the controversy around her participation in the 2024 Olympics spurred some Georgia lawmakers to take a closer look at transgender student athletes.
Jones, who is expected to run for governor next year, declined to be interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and referred to his December statement.
Jeff Graham, executive director of the LGBTQ+ rights group Georgia Equality, said his organization expects the 2025 legislative session to be “rough for the LGBT community, broadly, but very, very specifically to transgender Georgians.”
In 2020, Democratic lawmakers tried to tell their GOP colleagues that Georgia voting for President Joe Biden indicated the state was more moderate than it was being governed. Now Republican lawmakers are looking at President-elect Donald Trump’s Georgia victory in November as a green light to continue to push “culture war” issues.
“I think we have a very clear mandate from November’s election to make sure that we’re protecting our girls across the board,” said Cole Muzio, founder and president of the conservative Frontline Policy Council.
While Republicans in the General Assembly may feel emboldened by Trump’s victory, their interest in legislation targeting transgender Georgians goes back years.
In 2023, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law banning doctors from giving certain medical treatments to transgender minors.
The year before, Republican leadership in the House and Senate compromised on the issue of transgender sports. It tasked athletic associations with investigating whether there was a need to ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams.
The Georgia High School Association quickly voted to require athletes to compete based on their biological sex, effectively banning transgender athletes from participating based on gender identification.
Then-House Speaker David Ralston declined to put the restrictions into law. He died later that year and House Speaker Jon Burns assumed the role in 2023.
Muzio said he’s encouraged to hear that Burns has said regulating girls’ and women’s sports in Georgia is one of his top priorities this year.
“We’re excited to host him and his team to make sure that happens,” Muzio said.
Burns, a Republican from Newington, opened the door for legislation regulating transgender people last year when he said there is “nothing more important” than passing a law to “protect the integrity and fairness of girls’ sports at every level here in Georgia.”
During a news conference this week, Burns said “girls need to compete against girls and boys against boys.”
Burns said he wasn’t aware of any instances of transgender girls competing in sports in Georgia but, “what we do here a lot of times is we prevent problems and we anticipate issues that will impact people’s lives,” he said. “And I can assure that children that have trained all those years and then they are not competing on a level playing field, then I would say … that’s a problem we don’t need.”
The Senate panel commissioned by Jones recommended changing state law so student-athletes at public high schools and colleges must play on teams, dress, shower and use restrooms according to the gender on their birth certificate. The potential law would also apply to out-of-state and private institutions in games they play against those schools.
“We want to ensure that, at the high school and collegiate level, that Georgia-funded schools are participating on what we would consider this level playing field,” state Sen. Greg Dolezal said. Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming, served as chair of the Senate Special Committee on Protecting Women’s Sports.
Dolezal said he does not plan to introduce legislation regulating transgender in areas outside of sports. But all 236 members in the Legislature have the ability to draft bills, and it’s never clear what proposals will pick up traction in any given year.
The Georgia General Assembly begins its legislative session next week. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is running articles every day this week previewing some of the action. Stick with the AJC throughout the session for the most comprehensive coverage in the state.
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