The state Senate today approved transgender-related bills dictating what teams those athletes can play on, limiting what pronouns students can use at school and allowing lawsuits for injuries from transition procedures performed on minors.
Dem Sen. Mark Spreitzer, of Beloit, slammed the bills as an effort to “legislate trans people out of existence.”
But GOP Sen. Rob Hutton, who co-authored the sports and lawsuit bills, rebuffed that suggestion. He argued the bills barring transgender athletes from playing in K-12 and college teams designated for females are about fairness and protecting opportunities for girls and women. The Brookfield Republican also told the chamber he has met regularly with members of the transgender community.
“There is value in everybody regardless of who they claim to be and feel they are,” Hutton said.
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The transgender-related bills the Senate approved today 18-15 along party lines include:
- AB 100, which would require K-12 schools to designate teams, including those playing intramurals, as designed for males, females or co-ed. The bill would define “biological sex” as the physical condition of being male or female at birth as stated on someone’s original birth certificate. It also would ban those defined as biological males from using locker rooms designated for females. Gov. Tony Evers previously vetoed similar legislation.
- AB 102, which would impose similar requirements for the UW System and the Wisconsin Technical College System. As with AB 100, the bill would define a locker room as an area designated for students to change clothes and to be used by more than one individual at a time, including a shower room.
- AB 103, which would require written permission from a parent to use a pronoun for a minor student other than the one that aligns with their biological sex.
- AB 104, which would ban medical intervention on minors to change their biological sex. The bill includes exemptions such as a procedure to address a medically verifiable genetic disorder or sex development.
Those four bills now head to Evers, who has expressed opposition to all of them.
The guv is also opposed to SB 405, which would allow those who underwent a gender transition procedure before turning 18 to sue if it caused them physical, psychological, or emotional injuries. The bill, which would allow individuals to initiate the lawsuits until they turn 33, cleared the Senate today via a voice vote.
Dem Sen. Melissa Ratcliff, whose child is transgender, accused Republicans of pushing a political message in an attempt to gin up their base ahead of the April state Supreme Court election. The Cottage Grove Dem said her GOP colleagues are using transgender kids as pawns to score political points.
“I ask you directly, what are you actually afraid of?” Ratcliff asked. “Why are you so afraid of transgender people?”
