The controversial Republican-led bill to ban transgendered women athletes from competing in women’s sports has moved along in the Florida House, continues to garner support from even the more centrist-mind state legislators like Rep. Chip LaMarca (R).
Shortly after the measure passed in the House Secondary Education & Career Development Subcommittee on Wednesday, Rep. LaMarca told The Floridian that Republicans were being as fair as possible to both genders, and all that needed to be said about the issue was made in the committee.
LaMarca said he ultimately believes “they should compete in the sports that they, where their biology matches.”
“This is an issue of fairness and equity for women athletes, women and girls,” said LaMarca. “We all fought to have equality in women’s sports, just like the things we did with the student-athletes bill last year. We are very careful to not make it something that wouldn’t be fair to both genders. The points were made in the committee. You talk about biological advantages. If someone is transgendered, and that’s how they identify, that’s fine, but ultimately I think they should compete in the sports that they, where their biology matches.
But pro-LGBTQ legislators like Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D) are up in arms over the passage of the bill, and have called Republican legislators bigots who are “re-declaring the social wars against LGBTQ people.”
“Florida Republicans are RE-DECLARING the social wars against LGBTQ people,” stated Rep. Smith. “They’ve lost on every other front in the courts, in the Florida Commission on Human Relations, and so they’re inventing new things to be upset about”
Smith also said that GOP legislators were “motivated by bigotry” and “transphobia.”
“It’s motivated by bigotry. It’s motivated by transphobia. It’s NOT motivated, certainly, by any problems we’ve had in Florida,” @CarlosGSmithsaid. Transgender students have openly participated in athletics in Florida since 2012,"Smith said.
But outside of what Smith and other individuals in the Gay community who support transgender women to compete in women’s sports, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not.
“It’s unfair to allow biological men to compete in women’s sports,” stated Sen. Rubio. “And COVID funding shouldn’t be used to pay for it. But that is what Democrats just supported.”
