Griffey Seeks To Require Athletes To Compete Based On Biological Gender

Nashville, Tenn.–State Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) filed House Bill 1572 Monday, seeking to require school athletes in Tennessee to compete based upon their biological gender at birth as opposed to the gender with which they currently identify.
According to the press released issued by Griffey, House Bill 1572 proposes to amend Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 3 by adding in pertinent part that “Each elementary and secondary school in this state that receives any type of public funding from this state or a local government, or both, shall require, for an official or unofficial school-sanctioned athletic or sporting event, that each athlete participat[es] based on the athlete’s biological sex as indicated on the athlete’s original birth certificate issued at the time of birth.”
Griffey said, “We are seeing more and more transgender athletes competing and posting victories in traditionally gendered sports competitions, and doing so to the detriment of girls and women biologically born female.  Boys and men, due to testosterone levels, bigger bone structure, greater lung capacity, and larger heart size, have physical advantages in sports relative to girls and women.  These very biological differences are the reason sports have been bisected into separate male and female competitions – to allow females to compete in an environment that is not weighted against them.  For this reason, it is fundamentally unfair to allow someone biologically born a male, but who now identifies as a female, to compete in an athletic competition against biologically born females, who are disadvantaged.  It’s particularly unfair for high school athletes, who are born female and who are competing for college admissions and even college scholarships that will determine their entire life path.”
Griffey concluded, “With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushing through passage in the U.S. House of Representative HR 5 – the Equality Act — that, among other things, creates a civil right for male athletes to self-identify as females in sports competitions, I believe it is important for states to take a stand.  This is what I seek to do through the filing of House Bill 1572.”