PROTECTING GIRLS INTERSCHOLASTIC ATHLETES ACT
relating to requiring public school students to compete in
interscholastic athletic competitions based on biological sex.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE SOUTHERN CHAMBER OF DELEGATES:
SECTION 1. The legislature finds that:
(1) historically, boys participate in interscholastic
athletics at a higher rate than girls, and a noticeable disparity
continues between the athletic participation rates of students who
are girls and students who are boys in Southern schools.
(2) courts have recognized that classification by sex
is the only feasible classification to promote the governmental
interest of providing for interscholastic athletic opportunities
for girls.
SECTION 2. The purpose of this Act is to further the
governmental interest of ensuring that sufficient interscholastic
athletic opportunities remain available for girls to remedy past
discrimination on the basis of sex.
SECTION 3. INTERSCHOLASTIC ATHLETIC COMPETITION BASED
ON BIOLOGICAL SEX. (a) Except as provided by Subsection (b), an
interscholastic athletic team sponsored or authorized by a school
district or open-enrollment charter school may not allow a student
to compete in an interscholastic athletic competition sponsored or
authorized by the district or school that is designated for the
biological sex opposite to the student's biological sex as
correctly stated on:
(1) the student's official birth certificate, as
described by Subsection (c); or
(2) if the student's official birth certificate
described by Subdivision (1) is unobtainable, another government
record.
(b) An interscholastic athletic team described by
Subsection (a) may allow a female student to compete in an
interscholastic athletic competition that is designated for male
students if a corresponding interscholastic athletic competition
designated for female students is not offered or available.
(c) For purposes of this section, a statement of a student's
biological sex on the student's official birth certificate is
considered to have correctly stated the student's biological sex
only if the statement was:
(1) entered at or near the time of the student's birth;
or
(2) modified to correct any type of scrivener or
clerical error in the student's biological sex.
SECTION 4. This Act applies to any interscholastic athletic
competition sponsored or authorized by a school district or
open-enrollment charter school that occurs on or after the
effective date of this Act.
SECTION 5. This Act takes effect immediately.
