School sports authority defies Trump’s transgender order
After the Michigan High School Athletic Association refused to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning biological males from women’s sports, Republican legislators are speaking out and proposing legislation to enforce the new guidance.
“We must do everything we can to protect biological women in sports, in locker rooms, and in restrooms,” Michigan Sen. John Bellino, a Republican who represents part of Hillsdale County and Southeast Michigan, told The Collegian. “MHSAA is refusing to follow the executive order as issued.”
Trump signed the executive order Jan. 20, but the MHSAA said it is waiting for more guidance on the executive order before it changes its policy. Currently, transgender students are required to fill out a waiver to compete in women’s sports, and according to MHSAA, there are two transgender athletes with waivers in the state of Michigan.
MHSAA spokesperson Geoff Kimmerly said in a statement the order conflicts with the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, a 1977 Michigan law that protects against discrimination based on qualities such as religion, race, color, and sex.
“We’re just waiting for the next step I suppose,” Kimmerly told Bridge Michigan. “Obviously there’s a conflict here, and it’s going to have to be worked out one way or another.”
Bellino said he supports a bill introduced in the House by state Rep. Jamie Greene to prevent biological males from competing in women’s sports.
“The bill says that athletes can only compete and win awards consistent with the competitors’ biological sex,” Bellino said. “We will monitor its progression.”
Unless the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act is overturned, according to State Rep. Jennifer Wortz, R-Quincy, Republicans are at a “holding point” for the next two years.
“The issue we have in Michigan is that we have a highly liberal Supreme Court,” Wortz told The Collegian. “They’re gonna side with the Elliott-Larsen Act. So legislatively, we’re stuck.”
According to Wortz, the first step is to repeal the Elliott-Larsen Act.
“There’s enough support in the House, and I’m sure we could repeal the Elliott-Larsen Act and qualify it back to what the intention of it was, which was actually to protect growth in women’s sports, competitions, and to protect from discrimination,” Wortz said.
Repealing the act will prove difficult though, Wortz said. It is unlikely the Senate will follow suit, nor will it get a signature from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Although the executive order does not concretely change any rules in Michigan without legislative action, the federal government can withhold funding from schools that refuse to follow the order, according to Bellino.
“By the MHSAA allowing men to continue to play in women’s sports, schools that field these players may lose all access to federal funds,” Michigan Sen. Jonathan Lindsey, R-Coldwater, said in a statement. “The order handed down by President Trump says: ‘It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.’ This language is clear and should be taken seriously.”
The Department of Education can withhold federal money that funds bussing, free lunch programs, and large portions of school budgets, according to Wortz.
In the midst of legislative and legal battles, Wortz said that due to a lawsuit from the parents’ group Moms for Liberty against the Biden administration’s attempts to change Title IX regulations, a law that prohibits discrimination based on sex, state and MHSAA rules may not apply.
“If any parent in any school district nationwide is a member of Moms for Liberty, then that district cannot impose the Title IX changes until their Supreme Court has a hearing on it,” Wortz said. “I think there are a couple hundred schools in Michigan that are then put under that protection because we as moms are members, and therefore our kids are protected under that.”