On Tuesday morning, State Representative Scott Stadthagen appeared on the Jeff Poor Show discussing how he seeks to prevent transgender athletes competing in athletics for a gender not shown on their birth certificate.
In Stadthagen’s words, “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. 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.” Stadthagen went on to explain that he believes that it is a violation of Title IX. “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,” said the Hartselle lawmaker
“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.”
