A Minnesota lawmaker is likening a bill that would prohibit trans-identified males from competing in women’s sports to an act of “genocide” aimed at “erasing” those who do not identify as male or female.
As the Republican-controlled Minnesota House of Representatives debated House File 12, also known as the Preserving Girls’ Sports Act, Democratic state Rep. Alicia Kozlowski gave a speech denouncing the legislation. Kozlowski insisted that the measure was “a bill to bully trans and non-binary kids” that was “not about fairness in sports” but rather “about erasing trans girls, non-binary and two-spirit kids and people from public life.”
“They aren’t going to stop being transgender just because you strip them from sports or from housing or from their healthcare or any other public place that you don’t want us to be,” the lawmaker asserted on the House floor Monday. “Make no mistake that this is just another version of state-sponsored bullying and genocide.”
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Kozlowski’s campaign website lists the lawmaker as “the first non-binary/Two Spirit person to be elected to the Minnesota State legislature” as well as a member of the Ojibwe Native American tribe. “For me, growing up as an indigenous kid with the deck stacked against me, for me, this bill is incredibly personal. And it is to so many sitting here because sports was my outlet,” Kozlowski recalled.
Kozlowski added, “I played basketball. I played soccer, grew up to play broomball and take back our traditional lacrosse.”
“It was also an inlet for me through the beautiful game of soccer that I was able to step into my fullest self as a two-spirit person, to get back into my body after experiencing violence,” Kozlowski added. After explaining the benefits of sports for trans-identified youth, Kozlowksi reiterated that the legislation is “actually not about sports or safety” but rather, reflective of what she described as “a government that wants power and control over us.”
Kozlowski lamented that “we have a government that wants to recognize only two sexes,” rejecting the idea that “those are inchangeable.” She expressed disgust that “we have a government that wants to restrict access to healthcare, that wants to ban trans girls and non-binary kids from playing sports, from locker rooms and restrooms and from public life,” adding: “We know that our gender fluidity scares people because we refuse to be controlled.”
The chamber narrowly rejected the bill, voting 67-66 Monday to reject House File 12. All Democrats in the chamber opposed the measure while all but one Republican, House Majority Leader Harry Niska, voted to support the legislation.
Niska explained his decision to vote against the measure in a statement published ahead of Monday’s vote, noting that it was a parliamentary move rather than a demonstration of opposition to the bill.
“If Republicans bring a bill to the floor and all 67 of us vote for it while all 66 Democrats vote in opposition, the bill remains one vote short of the requisite 68 votes to pass the House and would be defeated,” he explained.
“Except there’s a legitimate parliamentary procedure House Republicans can use to spare a bill from immediate defeat. It goes like this: As Majority Leader, it is my job to join Democrats in voting against the Republican bill. That allows me to make a motion to reconsider the legislation and then immediately move to table it. That keeps a bill viable, available to be taken up another day instead of simply being voted down and dying,” he stated.
The push to pass the Preserving Girls’ Sports Act comes as 27 other states have implemented measures or regulations requiring athletes to compete on sports teams that align with their biological sex as opposed to their stated gender identity: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Efforts to prohibit trans-identified male athletes from competing on women’s sports teams have also emerged at the federal level during the Trump administration in the form of an executive order establishing it as “the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational institutions that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”
Supporters of efforts to require athletes to play on sports teams that align with their sex rather than their self-declared gender identity cite fairness concerns stemming from the biological differences between men and women that give men an unfair advantage over women in athletics. Examples of factors that give men an advantage in sports, as identified by USA Powerlifting, include “increased body and muscle mass, bone density, bone structure, and connective tissue.”
Stories of trans-identified male athletes breaking women’s sports records have also served as a call to action for legislation prohibiting trans-identified males from competing in women’s sports, with Lia Thomas emerging as the most notable example. Thomas began shattering women’s swimming records after joining the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swimming team following three years of competition on the men’s team.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
