Democrat revives Texas bill restricting transgender students' sports participation in apparent act of retaliation against his party

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/07/texas-transgender-sports-bill-
harold-dutton/

The bill previously lacked the votes to advance out of House committee.
After House Democrats spiked one of his bills, Rep. Harold Dutton, D-
Houston, revived it.

Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton on Friday revived and helped advance a
bill that would restrict transgender students from participating in school
sports, in what appears to be a retaliatory effort directed at members of
his own party for sinking one of his bills.

Senate Bill 29, abhorred by fellow Democrats, would require the University
Interscholastic League to force students to play on the sports teams based
on their biological sex instead of their gender identity.

The bill, which already passed in the Senate, is a priority of Republican
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Dutton, who chairs the House Public Education
committee, brought the legislation up for a committee vote on Tuesday,
where it failed to advance, in large part, because Republican state Rep.
Dan Huberty was absent that day and because Dutton himself abstained from
voting for or against the bill.

On Thursday night, Dutton, who is from Houston, presented his own bill to
the House floor that would give Texas Education Commissioner Michael
Morath the ability to take over a district that fails to meet various
academic standards and remove school board members. The bill is largely in
response to a current legal battle between the Texas Education Agency and
Houston ISD after the agency attempted to take over the district in 2019,
but was blocked from moving forward by a temporary injunction that's been
upheld by the state's Third Court of Appeals. Dutton's alma mater in
Houston ISD, Wheatley High School, has received an F rating for multiple
years.

That bill, which is largely unpopular among Democrats, was blocked from
being voted on after a fellow Houston Democrat Rep. Alma Allen sank it on
a procedural technicality. Dutton and Allen sparred over the bill's intent
on the House floor with Allen arguing the bill would provide the TEA with
too much latitude to take over an independent school district without
providing any recourse for a district.

"When the school goes down, the community goes down and the developers
move in," she said as Dutton repeatedly rejected her assessment. "That's
the long effect of this bill passing."

Dutton made several references to his bill’s failure on Friday morning in
the House Public Education committee as he brought the transgender student
athlete bill up for another vote.

“The bill that was killed last night affected far more children than this
bill ever will. So as a consequence, the chair moves that Senate Bill 29
as substituted be reported favorably to the full House with the
recommendation that it do pass,” he said.

He and Huberty, who is vice chair of the committee, then joined with the
previous yes votes, giving SB 29 an 8-5 majority and advancing it out of
committee. The bill must still be approved by the House before it can be
sent to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature.

Abbott did not return a request for comment, but told Fox News's Laura
Ingraham earlier this month that he would sign SB 29 if it came to his
desk.

State Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, who also sits on the Public
Education committee, called the vote “soul-crushing.

"The vote, bringing it back up, was used as a form of retaliation by the
chairman," Bernal said in an interview.

Dutton did not respond to calls for comment.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Chris Turner said in a statement Friday that
he is “severely disappointed” it was voted out of committee.

“Any policy that harms the emotional and educational well-being for our
students is bad for Texas students, for Texas families, and for our
state,” Turner said. “The bill should move no further in the process, and
the Texas House should be allowed to focus on common-sense policies that
benefit Texans, not discriminatory legislation that attacks our children.”

LGBTQ rights groups have also condemned the bill for threatening the
rights and mental health of transgender children in the state.

“We are already hearing from parents of transgender children who now
realize their kids' lives and dignity were used as a legislative
bargaining chip,” said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas. “It is an
incomprehensible betrayal to see a Democrat, who heard desperate testimony
from children and parents, take this incredibly harmful action out of
sheer vindictiveness toward his Democratic colleagues.”

Supporters have said the bill is necessary to protect women's sports,
arguing allowing transgender women or girls to play on a girls sports team
might give them an unfair advantage since they have higher levels of
testosterone. In committee hearing, medical experts testified many
transgender women go through puberty suppression and hormone treatments
that suppress testosterone. They also pointed out that physical
capabilities differ greatly within cisgender men and women, concluding
evidence for supporters’ claims are inconclusive.

LGBTQ advocates are also concerned the bill may lead to incidents where
masculine female athletes are forced to go through traumatizing
investigations over their sex assigned at birth in order to compete in
sports.

That concern has already manifested in the case of Heather Gothard, a
cisgender female runner who was targeted by social media posts falsely
claiming she was transgender and that should be disqualified from
competitive races.

“While SB 29 specifically seeks to target transgender kids, it will open
the door for discrimination towards any child who does not fit the gender
norms expected of them,” said Adri Perez, Policy and Advocacy Strategist
of the ACLU of Texas.

Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan has not responded to multiple
requests for comment on SB 29, but he has expressed resistance to anti-
LGBTQ bills in the past. In an interview during the 2019 legislative
session, when the so-called transgender “bathroom bill” was under
consideration, Phelan said that he’s “done talking about bashing on the
gay community.”

“It’s completely unacceptable,” he told the Tribune.



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