Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and members of his cabinet recently showed support for a state bill that would stop men who “identify” as women from joining women’s sports in Virginia’s public colleges and universities.
Gov. Youngkin, together with Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, Attorney General Jason Miyares, Republican state legislators, women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines, and others, spoke on Wednesday in favor of the legislation.
[RELATED: Texas AG sues NCAA over allowing men into women’s sports]
Youngkin said: “When we say you work as hard as you possibly can, you give everything you’ve got. You take advantage of those God-given natural abilities and yet we are going to deprive you of what you have earned, that is just wrong.”
Gaines also expressed support, saying: “Women matter, I matter, these girls who stand behind on the steps behind us matter, they matter, your daughters, they matter.”
The legislation, SB 749, also known as the Women’s Sports Act, requires “that the biological sex of any student seeking to participate on such an expressly designated team be affirmed by a signed physician’s statement” and “prohibits any such team or sport that is expressly designated for females from being open to students whose biological sex is male,” according to a summary of the bill on Virginia’s Legislative Information System.
The bill also “creates a civil cause of action for any student who suffers harm as a result of a knowing violation of a provision of the bill by a school or institution or as a result of the student’s reporting a violation of a provision of the bill by a school, institution, athletic association, or organization.”
The Women’s Sports Act was introduced in the Virginia Senate on Dec. 1, and was assigned to the Education Subcommittee on Public Education on Thursday.
The bill was introduced by Virginia State Sen. Brankley Mulchi, a Republican.
Efforts to stop men from joining women’s sports are not just limited to Virginia.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), for example, introduced the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” on Jan. 7, federal legislation that would “right the wrongs of the Biden administration by preventing women from being exposed to unfair and dangerous competition, as well as protecting women’s privacy in locker rooms,” according to Tuberville.
Campus Reform has reached out to Gov. Youngkin and State Sen. Mulchi for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
