Gender and school sports are among the first items on the agenda for the Georgia Senate this year, as lawmakers took up legislation Thursday to control participation in team competitions.
A Senate panel heard and passed Senate Bill 1, which would prohibit students from competing on teams that do not match the sex on their birth certificates. These restrictions already exist at the high school level after the state empowered the Georgia High School Association to enforce restrictions in 2022. But SB 1 would write these rules into law in middle school and in high school — and extend them to higher education. It would also apply to private schools that compete against public schools. Public schools would face loss of state funding for failure to comply.
Critics said the bill’s supporters were pushing a solution to something that isn’t really a problem.
