The South Carolina House passed a bill on Tuesday prohibiting transgender students from playing girls’ or women’s sports in public schools and colleges after handling over 1,000 estimated amendments by Democrats intended to delay the vote.
The tactic postponed the inevitable as the bill was passed 82–28 in Republican majority chamber. The bill is expected to pass in the South Carolina Senate, which is also dominated by Republicans.
If signed into law, transgender students will be required to compete with competitors of the same biological sex listed on their birth certificate.
Rules for transgender athletes have become an issue in midterm election campaigns. In Utah and Indiana, the GOP governors have vetoed similar bans, while approximately a dozen other states have already passed similar laws regarding this issue. The Legislature in Utah has since overturned the governor’s veto in a vote.
The South Carolina bill was passed on Tuesday night after 9 p.m. following eight hours of debate from four boxes full of amendments, as well as a tornado warning forcing the House to evacuate.
Rep. Democrat John King of Rock Hill, who wrote most of the amendments, shared that delaying the House had been a victory: “Today, we saw so many of my colleague stand up for people who do not often have a voice.”
Republican Speaker Jay Lucas dismissed approximately 600 amendment proposals from the Democrats’ four boxes of amendments designed to extend debate into the weekend, stating they were practically all the same with minor changes. The GOP majority voted to invoke a rule that limited debate to three amendments.
Over a dozen of the chamber’s 43 Democrats took turns to speak on the amendments. By the end of debate, an amendment to see the start of high school girls’ wrestling teams was passed.
Rep. Ashley Trantham (R), who sponsored the bill from Pelzer, thanked those who fought for two years for its passing just before the vote, stating, “It is because of your actions that South Carolina is one step closer to saving women’s sports.”
Currently, the South Carolina High School League hears each case for transgender athletes individually, and has heard less than five requests.
Molly Spearman, the state-elected Republican Education Superintendent, voted against the bill.
Rep. Krystle Matthews (D-Ladson), who also opposed the bill, said, “Leave these transgender kids alone. There are less than 1 percent of them.”
Debate on the issue came to a fore after a transgender biological male swimmer, who was ranked 462 in the biological male competition, won a biological female race in a college women’s championship swimming event by about 1.5 seconds to become ranked 1st among females on March 17.
