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There was a heated debate Friday afternoon on the New Hampshire Senate floor over legislation focused on transgender athletes in youth sports.
On a 14-10 party-line vote, Senate Republicans passed a bill separating interscholastic and collegiate sports by a player’s biological sex at birth, according to the text of the bill.
State Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, described the legislation as violence against transgender youth.
“Denying a person’s existence, restricting their access to things because you don’t understand gender identity is violence,” Altschiller said.
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Republicans bristled at that accusation. Senate President Jeb Bradley highlighted his 2018 vote to make gender identity a protected class under state antidiscrimination law. He pointed to recent high school sports headlines out of Massachusetts that he said he doesn’t want to see in New Hampshire.
“We should not be celebrating a bearded Massachusetts high school trans athlete that injured three girls,” Bradley said. “That’s not a celebration. That’s a fact. That’s reality, and we need to deal with reality.”
Senate Democrats dismissed reports of injuries caused by transgender athletes, with Altschiller calling it a “preposterous fear-based fantasy.”
State Sen. Becky Whitley, D-Hopkinton, suggested that if the Senate is truly worried about safety, it should ban tackle football.
“Youth tackle football athletes sustain 15 times more head impacts than flag football during a practice or game and sustain 23 times more high-magnitude head impacts,” she said. “Are we really concerned about safety? Let’s pass that law.”
Both sides claim they’re supporting the issue of fairness in the debate. Republicans contend no one is speaking up for the girls who might lose a spot on a team or at state competitions because of a more dominant transgender athlete.
“The 11th girl who doesn’t make the team on a 10-man roster or 10-woman roster, they’re the ones who are not going to learn the leadership roles,” said state Sen. William Gannon, R-Sandown. “They’re not going to mix, so we are hurting biological females here.”
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