Governor Tony Evers at a workforce listening session in Wausau. MWC photo by Mike Leischner
MADISON, WI (WSAU) – Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill on Tuesday morning that would’ve made it against Wisconsin state law for students to play in sports leagues outside of their biological sex.
Evers made the announcement in a video that was posted on X saying, “I just vetoed Republicans’ anti-LGBTQ bill to ban trans and gender-nonconforming kids from participating in school sports that align with their gender identity. LGBTQ kids deserve our love and respect and support just like any other kid.”
“States across this country may give way to radical policies targeting LGBTQ individuals and families and threatening LGBTQ folks’ everyday lives and their ability to be safe, valued, supported, and welcome being who they are. As long as I am the governor of this great state, Wisconsin will not be among them,” Evers continued.
Similar legislation has been passed in states like Florida, South Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Idaho, and leaders in those states say the law is needed to keep women’s sports an even playing field, prevent possible injuries, and protect women and children from feeling uncomfortable or pressured to have to change clothes or shower next to a biological male in their schools’ locker rooms.
One notable instance that made national headlines last year was when Australian transgender soccer player and biological male Riley J. Dennis shoulder-checked an opposing biological female soccer player to the ground, injuring her and causing her to miss time, and another, being when a North Carolina high school volleyball player, Payton McNabb, was injured by a biological male during a match when he spiked the ball into her face causing a concussion and neck injury which McNabb states has caused her to now suffer from long term partial paralysis on the right side of her body.
These laws come as over a dozen former and current NCAA athletes, including former University of Kentucky All-American swimmer Riley Gaines and University of Virginia Tech All-American swimmer Reka Gyorgy, filed a lawsuit last week stating that the organization allowing biological men to compete with women in sports such as wrestling, swimming, and basketball violates Title XI laws and the 14th Amendment saying the rules are, “destroying female safe spaces in women’s locker rooms by authorizing naked men possessing full male genitalia to disrobe in front of non-consenting college women.”
Both Gaines and Gyorgy also state in the lawsuit that their collegiate careers were harmed by NCAA rules allowing biological men to compete with biological women as Gyorgy missed the cutoff for the 2022 NCAA women’s swimming championships by just one spot, losing to transgender swimmer and biological male Lia Thomas and Gaines tying with Thomas in those same championships.
In response to Gov. Evers’s veto, Gaines quote tweeted his X post with a short response saying, “If you live in WI, contact your state rep/senator. The veto can be overridden with a 2/3 majority vote like they did in Ohio recently. Public opinion/public outrage matters,” and continued by saying, “He (Evers) couldn’t represent Wisconsin values/priorities any less if he tried. Vote this fool out.”
According to a Gallup poll that was released last fall, 69 % of Americans believe that biological men should not be allowed to compete against biological women in sports, which was a 7% jump compared to 2022. The poll also found that there was a drop from 40% to 30% since 2021 in those who say they know a transgender person and believe they should be able to compete in a sport based on their chosen identity.
Another recent study completed by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles found that about 5% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ people, with young people, such as Gen Z Americans being the most likely to identify with the group at 15.2% of respondents or 4.6 million people.
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