AUSTIN, Texas (KEYE) — The Texas House of Representatives has approved a bill banning transgender children from playing school sports of the gender with which they identify on Thursday.
State lawmakers passed House Bill 25 by a largely party line vote of 76-54, which came after almost ten hours of debate that turned into heated partisan heel digging on several occasions.
The House gave initial approval on second reading of the bill, then adjourned and reconvened minutes later to start a new legislative day so they could technically give third and final approval on a "separate" day. Now, the Senate has to pass the bill in committee and the floor.
House Bill 25 prohibits transgender girls from playing girls sports, but will allow transgender boys to play boys sports if there is no girls option for that particular sport.
Bill author and state Rep. Valoree Swanson, R-Spring, shepherded this priority in the second special session. She has said both in committee hearings and on Thursday's floor debate that this piece of legislation is necessary to protect girls and girls sports.
"[House Bill 25] protects girls' safety and their right to equal access to athletic opportunities," Swanson said. "Courts have found that the state has a legitimate interest in redressing past discrimination against girls in sports and protecting their equal access to athletic opportunities."
Critics have repeatedly pointed to the fact the fear Republicans hope this bill addresses does not actually happen.
In each committee hearing, the University Interscholastic League - or UIL, the state's governing body for school sports - testified they have received zero complaints of transgender girls playing in girls sports. Additionally, Republicans were unable to name one example of a girl losing a scholarship to a transgender girl when pressed on this.
"We're not aware of a single competitive scholarship where a woman was denied because of competition against a transgender athlete," said state Sen. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch, who is the treasurer for the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus. "We're not aware of a single team competition where a team did not succeed because the other team included transgender athletes and their participation."
Johnson also pointed to a decision by a federal district judge in Idaho appointed by former President Donald Trump, who found there was zero evidence any sports competition in the state was affected by transgender participation. This was in response to Swanson citing an example in Idaho during her introduction of the bill.
Democrats have also said this bill is not necessary because the UIL already has written in their rules that student athletes are only allowed to play sports of the gender on their birth certificate.
Meanwhile, Republicans are pointing to another issue: changing the gender on birth certificates.
House Bill 25 also states the gender on the birth certificate must have been entered "at or near the time of the student ’s birth," meaning modified birth certificates later in the child's life will not allow them to participate in the school sport of the gender listed on the modified document.
The UIL rules currently do not include this provision, and - during last week's committee hearing - they testified they have fielded a call from one Dallas-area school district asking about a specific situation they're going through now with two students going through the process of getting their birth certificate changed.
State Rep. James White, R-Hillister, said calls like this are why they need to move on this bill.
"The UIL has stated they are getting more inquiries from their member schools. People say this is not necessary on and on and on and on. This is already a practice in UIL right now, that to determine your eligibility in a sport, we look at your birth certificate to determine your sex. That's already in there," White said. "You have cases coming up through courts, phone calls into UIL, that's where it's important for the legislature to step in and have the appropriate statutes in place to make sure everyone knows the rules of the game so to speak."
Democrats again raised attention to how few times this has happened, with this being the only example listed by Republicans.
However, they said there is a bigger issue causing them to strongly oppose this bill.
Transgender rights activists and parents of transgender children have shown up to the Texas Capitol across all four lawmaking periods so far this calendar year, and each time they have said the bill does not even have to pass to harm the community.
The ongoing discussion around this bill has increased transgender children's anxiety, they have said.
The Trevor Project is the world's largest suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ youth, and reports calls to their hotline have increased by 150 % just in Texas this year compared to last year.
Additionally, 52 % - more than half - of transgender and nonbinary children have considered suicide while 20 % - one in five - have actually gone through with an attempt, according to a study by the organization.
"What are we doing here? Because we do know this bill creates harm for some children," said state Rep. Mary Gonzalez, D-Clint, who is the chair of the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus.
The fight over transgender children and school sports has been the source of a deepening partisan divide between the two parties.
Thursday is the first time in one regular session and three special sessions that a bill on this specific issue has made it to the Texas House floor.
The Texas Senate has more aggressively pursued legislation aimed at transgender children and school sports, while the House has served as a firewall of sorts getting in the way of this priority becoming law.
In the regular session, the House committee in charge of setting the floor calendar did not put that version of the bill until the last day the chamber was allowed to pass bills. Even in this case, the committee put the bill so low on the schedule that it did not even get called up to begin discussion before the midnight deadline.
During the first two special sessions, the bill was placed in a Democratically-chaired committee. Committee chairs can call up bills for debate and a vote on their own discussion, and Democrats have been very vocally opposed to the issue.
In the third special session, the Senate rushed through the bill passage process for this priority - Senate Bill 3 - to send it to the House. That bill was again assigned to a Democratically-chaired committee, and never was assigned a hearing date.
However, House Bill 25 - which is almost identical to Senate Bill 3 - was assigned to a Republican-chaired committee, and was advanced to the floor after a full day of discussion and public testimony.
With only five days left in the third special session, the Senate still needs to pass HB 25 in both committee and on the floor. This will likely happen, given the Senate's history on this issue.