Trans Alabama Athletes Can't Compete in Women's College Sports

Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama signed a bill on May 30 that forbids transgender individuals from competing on college women's sports teams.

Until recently, the state forbade transgender athletes in grades K through 12 from participating in female youth sports. Even after receiving hormone therapy, students cannot play with a different gender identity according to the law.

Look, if you are a biological male, you are not going to be competing in women’s and girls' sports in Alabama. It’s about fairness, plain and simple.

- Ivey

The movement for the college regulations began in April when legislation advanced in the middle of the month. The K through 12 ban was put in place in 2021.

"Forcing women to compete against biological men would reverse decades of progress that women have made for equal opportunity in athletics," says the bill’s sponsor Republican Representative Susan DuBose, in April. She continued that "No amount of hormone therapy can undo all those advantages of being born male.”

According to the measure, biological females would not be permitted to play sports with males, which has drawn members and supporters of the LGBTQ+ community to criticize the prohibition. The Human Rights Campaign's state director for Alabama, Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey, states that the measure is part of a "systematic attack against LGBTQ+ people" in Alabama and elsewhere.

The participation of transgender women and girls in female sports is prohibited in twenty additional states, including Idaho, Wyoming, Texas, and Florida.

Anderson-Harvey concludes: "In just two years, she and extremist lawmakers in Alabama have passed four anti-LGBTQ+ bills. From dictating what bathrooms we can use to blatantly ignoring the actual problems in women’s sports, these politicians are making Alabama an increasingly hostile place for transgender people and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.”