State Rep. Stadthagen seeks to prohibit transgender athletes in K-12 girls’ sports — ‘Whatever your birth certificate says’ is the sport you will play

There have been instances of transgender athletes competing in athletics of their chosen sex around the country, which in some circumstances may afford them an advantage given their biological sex.

State Rep. Scott Stadthagen (R-Hartselle) seeks to prevent that from happening in Alabama’s public school athletics at the K-12 level.

During an appearance on Tuesday’s broadcast of “The Jeff Poor Show,” Stadthagen discussed his HB391, which has 32 co-sponsors from every corner of Alabama, that would require the stated gender on one’s birth certificate to be the classification of the sport a student-athlete would participate in.

“Basically, this bill — whatever your birth certificate says, if it says you are male or you are female, that is the sport you will play in K-12 athletics,” he said. “I think this is more of a women’s rights [issue]. You know, this is something we definitely have to stay on top of. We have roughly about 16 other states that have filed legislation that is similar to this one. And I’m excited about it.”

The Morgan County lawmaker argued for his legislation in the spirit of fairness.

“The crazy part about it is it is a violation of the intent of Title IX,” Stadthagen explained. “As a parent, as all the parents of our state, I think we all have that concern, especially with daughters, for them to grow and have life fair. And men competing in women’s sports is definitely not fair.”

“It is about being fair,” he added. “Basically, we’re not saying if you feel you want to play the other sports, you just can’t do it in K-12. You can be who you want to be. You just can’t do it and take — if a girl dreams of being a track star, and this is actually a true story from Connecticut that we’ve been paying attention to, and she didn’t qualify for the playoffs because of two guys. She had to sit from the sidelines and watch them two individuals win the trophy that she is supposed to be winning. We definitely need to stay on top of it, that’s for sure.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.