WLBT-TV Jackson
Hyde-Smith joins bill ensuring sports teams are based on ‘reproductive biology’
By Josh Carter
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith has co-signed a bill that she says would “protect athletic opportunities for female athletes.”
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which has been co-signed by 12 other Republican senators including Ted Cruz (R, TX) and Rand Paul (R, KY), addresses provisions in sports and ensures that gender is based solely on a person’s “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
The legislation also states that recipients of government funds allowing males to participate in women’s sports would violate regulations outlines in Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school that receives federal money.
“Female athletes of all ages should be allowed fair and equal competition, which means competing against other women,” wrote Hyde-Smith in a statement Thursday. “It is categorically unfair for females to be forced to compete against biological males.”
The Mississippi senate has also passed a similar bill written by Sen. Angela Hill which wouldn’t allow athletic teams designated for females, women or girls to be open to students of the male sex.
The bill, deemed “anti-transgender” by critics, passed by a vote of 34-9. Its fate now rests in the hands of the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Rob Hill, state director of the Mississippi’s Human Rights Campaign, stated that the legislation is “putting fear over facts and denying fundamental rights to transgender Mississippians in the process.”
Mississippi’s Governor Tate Reeves has also spoken on this topic, recently posting on social media that politicians are ‘pushing children into transgenderism’ after President Biden signed an executive order mandating that transgender women should be able to compete on female teams in school.