Georgia Legislature File Anti-Transgender Bill on First Day of Legislative Session

Atlanta—As the Georgia Legislature convened to kick off the 2025 legislative session, the very first Senate bill (SB 1) filed aims at keeping transgender biological boys out of biological girls’ sports.

According to the legislative measure, the text of the bill states that a student’s sex is what is printed on their birth certificate and prevents schools from allowing self-identified transgender male students to take part in female sports.

The measure still allows for students to play on teams that are designated as co-ed, and girls are still allowed to play on biological boy teams.

Just as the bill was filed, a group of pro-LGBTQ activists held a press event in the state Capitol, where they argued against the newly filed bill, and reiterated all of the same national talking points that the transgender community has been using to make their argument about allowing biological boys to play in girl’s sports.

During a media gaggle moments after the  event, an individual who was spearheading the trans efforts at the Capitol,  made the argument that preventing children from playing sports was detrimental children and unfair, and invoked "White Supremacists."

“The whole crux of sports is competition. If you want to reduce people down to a bio-cen (inaudible) argument that only particular people with certain body parts  are allowed to play a game, well then find ourselves in a similar positions to where White Supremacists were arguing that sports be segregated,” said the representative.

Another attorney working alongside the Human Rights Campaign argued that not allowing children to participate in sports would work against their overall development.

“The benefits of participation in school sports are variable. There are health and Wellness benefits. There are social benefits. There are all kinds of things that help children develop as young people in their experience participating in school sports,” said the attorney. “But I'll also add is when there are restrictions on participation, we see the negative impacts of that right and actually the people who bear those consequences the most are not trans students, they are cisgender girls.’

The LGBTQ community refers to biological girls who identify as female as cisgender.

How Young is too Young?

When Dome Politics asked both men asked what age was appropriate for children to begin gender-affirming care, the first spokesman side-stepped the question.

“Its not for me to decide what age is appropriate to receive care..Our position is that healthcare is best determined by a team of doctors, by their families, not by people who don’t have any insight into their life,” he added.

The attorney gave a more thorough answer, stating that while sex-change operations were not recommended “in most instances” before the age of 16, hormone and puberty blocker therapies were an accepted medical practices.

“Surgery is not recommended for anyone younger than 16 in most instances, and really what we're looking at is hormones and puberty blockers and those are things that are, that since children have access to without exclusion or issues across the country,” he added. “They're safe. They're you know, medically indicated for lots of different reasons and have been used by doctors for all kinds of purposes for many many years.