Virginia Republicans renew push to ban transgender athletes from women's sports

Kate Seltzer, The Virginian-Pilot on Jan 15, 2025

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RICHMOND, Va. — For the fourth year in a row, Virginia Republicans have introduced legislation in the General Assembly that would ban transgender athletes from participating on sports teams that align with their gender.

The bills, proposed by Sen. Tammy Brankley Mulchi, R-Clarksville, and Del. Delores Oates, R-Front Royal, would require public schools and universities to expressly designate their teams as male, female or coed. They also would mandate that anyone seeking to play on girls, boys, men’s or women’s teams would need a note signed by a doctor affirming their biological sex.

The legislation also would apply to any member school of the Virginia High School League, which has historically said it would keep its own policies on transgender athletes.

Though the bills have the backing of the state’s top Republicans, including Attorney General Jason Miyares, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — who attended a Wednesday news conference — the legislation appears unlikely to advance in the Virginia House or Senate, where Democrats hold slim majorities and have historically opposed similar legislation.

However, the renewed push comes at a time that similar legislation has gained traction at the federal level. The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday that would prohibit federal funding from going to K-12 schools that include transgender students on women’s sports teams. It still must pass the Senate.

“The thought of competing against a biological male sends the message that women aren’t worthy and don’t actually matter,” Miyares said. “Yes you do.”

During Wednesday’s news conference at the Barbara Johnson Building, elected officials stood with women student athletes from the Liberty University swim and dive team, the Roanoke College swim team, Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, and Wise County High School, as well as athletes from the Riley Gaines Center. Gaines, who has been an outspoken critic of trans women in sports since she tied a trans woman for fifth place at the NCAA swimming championships in 2022, also was a featured speaker.

Gaines testified in Virginia two years ago about the experience.

"I will never forget how I was treated by the Democrats in the state of Virginia,” she said. “They told me it didn’t really matter, it’s a fringe issue, it’s such a small percentage, this isn’t really happening.”

It’s true that a tiny percentage of student athletes are trans. From 2020-24, about 30 trans student athletes submitted appeals to the VHSL to play on a sports team consistent with their gender identity, per data provided by Mike McCall, the league’s communications director. About 27 of those appeals were granted. That’s out of 185,000 student athletes affiliated with VHSL.

At the national level, NCAA President Charlie Baker testified in December during a Senate congressional hearing that he was aware of fewer than 10 transgender athletes competing in college sports out of 510,000 college athletes.

Last week, a federal judge struck down President Joe Biden’s Title IX ruling protecting LGBTQ students. Miyares was part of the joint lawsuit that prompted the change.

Current Virginia High School League guidance, in place since 2014, prescribes that trans athletes who wish to play sports in accordance with their gender identity should submit to the school district at the first level of review, then to the executive director of VHSL and the executive committee if the request is not granted.

The review takes into account whether students have undergone sex reassignment before puberty, have medical documentation showing a consistent identity different than what is on their birth certificates, or have undergone hormonal therapy. The goal is essentially to ensure that student athletes are not claiming a gender identity for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage — the guidance says athletes who competed in a VHSL activity in one gender and subsequently request a waiver to compete in the other gender without sufficient documentation will not be considered.

“No one transitions to compete in sports,” said Stacie Walls, CEO of LGBT Life Center, an LGBTQ advocacy organization in Hampton Roads. “By reducing a deeply personal and human experience to a political talking point, these efforts aim to erase trans individuals from public life entirely. This isn’t about fairness in sports — it’s about marginalizing a community that already faces disproportionate levels of discrimination and harm.”

Meanwhile, Democrats, who control both chambers of the General Assembly, seem unlikely to pass the legislation this time around.

“We have typically deferred to the high school league for making decisions with regard to those issues, and so far, I haven’t heard a single person complain about how they’ve handled it,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell in an interview last week.

The Senate subcommittee on public education will take up the legislation, SB749, Thursday. Its counterpart in the House, HB1809 is still awaiting committee assignment.

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