State Sen. Lana Theis of Brighton Township and state Rep. Jason Woolford of Howell were among the Republican lawmakers at a press conference Thursday urging the Michigan High School Athletic Association to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order preventing transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports.
Out of an estimated 175,000 high school athletes in Michigan, there are none currently competing in winter sports; however, there were two transgender students with waivers to participate in the fall sports season, according to Geoff Kimmerly, MHSAA’s communication director.
Republican lawmakers on Thursday said the state’s schools could risk federal funding if the MHSAA does not implement Trump’s executive order, important, too, they said for the safety of students athletes and promotion of fair competition.
This move is the latest in a sustained push by Republicans on the state and national level to prevent transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports. They have repeatedly said they should compete with boys in alignment with their biological sex.
The MHSAA has for now maintained its policy of reviewing requests from trans athletes on a case-by-case basis, pending further legal guidance.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive directive shortly after Trump took office to have state departments and agencies to review the president’s executive orders on issues including gender identity in sports to ensure compliance.
Rep. Jason Woolford of Howell referenced a story highlighted during Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday of a girl in North Carolina who suffered a traumatic brain injury during a 2022 volleyball match when the ball was spiked into her face by a transgender girl.
“While a very small number of our critics often point out that this is just a very small amount of participants in Michigan’s female athletic divisions, I want to point out what’s more important to all of us, and that is the 112,000 high school female athletes in Michigan whose parents can no longer have a certainty that their children will not suffer the same fate.”
Woolford said girls and women also could wind up in a locker room with transgender girls, which he believes would lead to potential physical harm to biologically female students. A 2019 study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that transgender or nonbinary teens are more likely to be sexually assaulted in schools that prevent them from using bathrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
“This radical transgender ideology endangers female athletes, allowing biological males to invade their private spaces, destroy the integrity of the sport and jeopardize their physical safety,” Woolford said. “This is why … we are saying that we will no longer allow our daughters and women to be taken advantage of by insecure men, haters of women, radical transgender ideology and those who choose to stand in silence. We today are no longer standing in silence for our women and children.”
Woolford has introduced a bill that would require K-12 public schools in the state to separate student athletes by biological sex.
Woolford’s bill would ban state government from investigating any schools who chose to enforce the separation of transgender athletes from girls’ sports. It would also allow for lawsuits to be pursued by any student who is harmed by any violation of the policy.
The video of the press conference is below.
