MAY 27, 2021 (BATON ROUGE) – Today, members of the Louisiana House of Representatives joined their colleagues in the Senate in passing SB 156 by Sen. Beth Mizell (R-Franklinton), the Louisiana Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. Fairness in Women’s Sports has been a top agenda item for the Louisiana Family Forum this session. We applaud this action and appreciate those legislators who voted to protect female athletes and their athletic programs. The final vote was 77-17.
SB 156, as passed, prohibits a team designated for females, girls, or women from being open to competitors who are not biologically female. Title IX guarantees biological women the right to have their own, fair competitive sporting programs and they shouldn’t be sidelined on the playing field. Allowing biological males to integrate into women’s sports reverses 50 years of progress, ignores biological reality, and violates women.
Our state has a duty and obligation to protect and preserve competitive female athletics. Even the world’s best female athletes would succumb to multitudes of young men in head-to-head competition.
Upon passage of SB 156 in the Louisiana House of Representatives, Louisiana Family Forum President Gene Mills said:
“We are especially thankful to Sen. Mizell and Rep. Laurie Schegel for bringing the bill forward and sending it to the Governor’s desk. Women in Louisiana deserve to compete on a level playing field. Allowing men to compete in women’s sports destroys fair competition, destroys women’s athletic opportunities, and eventually destroys women’s sports.
We look forward to Governor Edwards adding his signature to SB156 and validating Louisiana’s attentiveness to and concern for women athletes.”
