Michigan House approves ban on transgender girls in female K-12 sports

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House Republicans have approved a ban on transgender girls from female K-12 sports.

The bills approved Thursday, May 22, would also allow students to sue school districts if they were “harmed due to a violation of the policy.”

Transgender girls would still be able to compete in co-ed and boys’ divisions and transgender boys would be allowed to compete in boys’ divisions. The bill defines sex as the designation listed on a person’s original birth certificate.

The bills saw support from all Republicans and opposition from all but one Democrat.

One of the bills passed Thursday would roll back protections to allow schools to base a student’s eligibility to participate in sports based on sex assigned at birth.

State Rep. Amos O’Neal, D-Saginaw, was the sole Democrat to vote in favor of that bill Thursday, though he voted against the bill banning transgender girls from K-12 female sports.

The bills are unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Bill sponsor state Rep. Jason Woolford, R-Howell, said the restrictions would ensure fair competition and protections for females in school sports.

“The real victims are the young women and girls who even the United Nations acknowledges have had equal opportunities in athletics taken from them,” Woolford said in a floor speech Thursday. “Scholarships that they may have depended on for their livelihood given to undeserving male peers, and recognitions and accomplishments they have expended so much time, effort, emotional energy and trying to achieve all being stripped away.”

Woolford cited a 2024 United Nations report that said allowing transgender women to compete against women has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals. The report’s claim was based on third-party information submitted to the UN.

There are currently no transgender girls competing in female high school sports divisions in Michigan, although there were two participants last fall, per the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA).

State Rep. Emily Dievendorf, D-Lansing, the legislature‘s first openly nonbinary lawmaker, said the bills promote bullying and harassment against children and erode their civil rights.

“This bill is blatantly discriminatory against kids,” Dievendorf said in a floor speech. “It makes girls across the board — not exclusively transgender and non-binary children — pawns in an absurd and degrading debate about human value. I am sick and tired of all that is being done to try to divide people. All that is being done out of cruelty.

“Being a kid is hard enough. All kids should be able to participate in sports for the same reasons as anyone else: Invaluable lessons of teamwork and discipline, lifelong friendships and physical and mental health benefits.”

The MHSAA allows transgender girls to compete in female sports with a waiver. Waivers aren’t required to compete on boys’ teams.

Those waivers are provided each season and were granted last fall to two transgender girls. No waivers were granted during the winter season, nor for the current spring season.

There are about 175,000 high school athletes across MHSAA member schools.

MHSAA has maintained its transgender participation policy even as President Donald Trump in February issued an executive order aimed at banning transgender women from female sports across all educational levels.

The House passed a resolution earlier this year urging MHSAA to align its policy with Trump’s order, saying noncompliance could result in a loss of federal funding for school districts.

For this story, MHSAA referred MLive to its previous statement from March.

In that statement, MHSAA spokesperson Geoff Kimmerly said the organization’s rules and policies comply with state and federal law.

Kimmerly said MHSAA won’t reverse its transgender participation policy unless there is a change in state law or a resolution to the legal challenges against Trump’s executive order.

Equality Michigan, an LGBTQ+ political advocacy organization, on Thursday condemned the passage of the bills, saying MHSAA is well equipped and informed to keep high school athletes safe and competitions fair.

“The bills, beyond openly encouraging discrimination against transgender young people, could also subject all Michigan kids to dangerous and invasive gender inspections and ridicule,” officials with Equality Michigan wrote on social media.

Under the bills, students could sue a school district if they suffered harm or were deprived of athletic opportunities by that district’s failure to follow the proposed transgender ban.

State and local governments would also be forbidden from investigating or charging a school that enforced the ban.

The Michigan Legislature in 2023 passed legal protections for LGBTQ residents by including sexual orientation and gender identity in the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. The act protects people from discrimination based on race, sex and other categories.

The act currently forbids education institutions from engaging in discriminatory practices. One of the bills passed Thursday would roll back those protections to allow for schools to base a student’s eligibility to participate in sports based on sex assigned at birth.

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