As we look back over another exhausting legislative session, it’s important to recognize that while there is still some uncertainty around the last minute amendment to HB 1084, in general this was another largely successful session.
The bill passed by our legislature earlier this week understandably raised anxiety and questions in our community. But it’s important to know that this bill does not ban transgender athletes from participating in school sports in our state. In its current form, the legislation reinforces the status quo that the Georgia High School Association has the authority to determine eligibility for participation in high school sports in our state and creates an athletics oversight committee that could consider eligibility for transgender girls to play school sports.
It’s clear that this creates a path forward for possible restrictions on who can play sports in our state. But there’s a lot that’s still unknown about the implications of the bill. For example, while it gives an oversight committee the ability to look into the topic of gender and sports, there’s no current mandate for it to become involved in such issues. If, and how, this would impact the self-regulating policies that the Georgia High School Association currently has in place in our schools is unclear.
It’s unsettling that this bill was passed without the deep consideration and the conversation about its potential impacts that it deserved—and, instead, passed after midnight, having been substantively changed in the final hours of our legislative session.
However, we remain hopeful that the oversight committee and the Georgia High School Association will ensure that there is no harm done to transgender kids in Georgia, who simply want the opportunity to play sports with their peers.
Even late into the final hours of this session, all of us were sending messages into the Senate to stave off final attacks on trans young people, and it worked in preventing the passage of an outright ban on the participation of trans students in athletics. Since the start of the 2022 session, LGBTQ Georgians and their allies have sent over 5,000 messages to members of the legislature urging their support of LGBTQ Georgians, and I want to say a special THANK YOU to each of them! This result would not have been possible without each and every one of you.
We’ve got bills to be proud of that passed and are awaiting Gov. Kemp’s signature. Once he signs those bills into law, we will celebrate those too.
In the meantime though, here is the list of all the anti-LGBTQ measures we stopped together in the 2021-2022 legislative session:
-HB 276, the first Trans student athlete ban: STOPPED
-HB 372 the second Trans student athlete ban: STOPPED
-HB 401, a bill to ban gender affirming care for minors: STOPPED
-SB 266, the third Trans student athlete ban: STOPPED
-SB 435, the fourth Trans student athlete ban: STOPPED
-SB 613, the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill: STOPPED
From removing student artwork in Athens, to attempts to ban trans students from sport, and to suppress LGBTQ students in the classroom, anti-LGBTQ forces are hard at work in Georgia, but today we’ll celebrate the good news—we were able to stop these attacks at the state level for another year!
But the attacks won’t stop here. This fight will continue through the rest of the year, and next. So, now we turn our attention to elections, and efforts to elect pro-equality candidates from the Governor to State Legislators and local officials. And that’s why I’m asking you to commit to making a monthly contribution to Georgia Equality. We can and we must outlast these anti-LGBTQ efforts. You can help make that possible — with a monthly contribution today.
Thank you for all of your work this session!
Jeff Graham, Executive Director
PS: LGBTQ students and families have just as much right to see themselves reflected in the classroom, the library, and on the field of play as other students do, please support this important work with a donation today.