News
Featured Image

INDIANAPOLIS (LifeSiteNews) – Indiana lawmakers voted Tuesday to override Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s veto of a bill banning males from girls’ sports, making the state the 17th to enact legislation protecting sports from LGBT ideology.

HEA 1041, which Holcomb vetoed in March, requires public and private schools to “expressly designate” sports as either for boys or girls and prohibits males, based on sex “in accordance with genetics and reproductive biology” from joining girls’ teams.

Under the bill, female students and their parents can sue schools over lost athletic opportunities or other harm suffered due to having to compete against boys.

READ: ‘Sick of being bullied into silence’: Female skateboarder rebels against males in women’s contests

The Indiana House voted 67-28 to override Holcomb’s veto, and the Senate backed the override in a 32-15 vote. Four Republicans in the state Senate and three in the House voted to uphold the veto, NBC News reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana immediately filed a lawsuit challenging HEA 1041, which takes effect July 1, according to NBC. Just two of the more than 17 state laws enacted in recent years to protect women’s sports from gender-confused males have been blocked by courts.

Gov. Holcomb said in a statement Tuesday that he hasn’t changed his position on the bill, which he said in March will increase the “likelihood of litigation” against schools.

Republican Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, however, called the legislation “a matter of simple fairness.”

“We don’t like to get to the state of Indiana sued, but it happens from time to time,” he said Tuesday. “It’s a policy that I think we can stand behind.”

Seven other states with GOP-led legislatures have approved similar laws this year, including South Dakota, Iowa, Utah, Arizona, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Earlier this month, a Georgia athletic association of more than 400 schools banned students from competing based on “gender identity.”

Recent polling shows that solid majorities of swing state voters support laws to safeguard single-sex sports at the K-12 and collegiate levels.

READ: Disney’s new ‘Pride’ clothing line targets babies, children

The wave of state action comes amid widespread reports of “transgender” males, backed by left-wing athletic associations, dominating women’s high schoolcollege, and professional sports.

Professional female skateboarder Taylor May Silverman last week publicly blasted Red Bull for allowing a man who goes by “Lilian” Gallagher to sweep the women’s Red Bull Cornerstone event last year.

Studies have repeatedly found that gender-confused males’ innate physical advantages allow them to outperform women massively in athletic competitions, regardless of attempts at a feminized appearance. A February 2021 study in Sports Medicine reported that a full year of transgender hormones resulted in only “very modest changes” in men’s muscle mass and strength.

Along with Gov. Holcomb, two other Republican governors, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, have vetoed sport fairness bills in recent years. Utah lawmakers overrode Cox’s veto in March.

RELATED:

Tennessee gov. signs bills to restrict abortion drugs, ban males from women’s college sports

1 Comments

    Loading...