Tennessee private schools are now authorized to “regulate a student’s participation in the school’s athletic activities or events based upon a student’s biological sex.”
Governor Bill Lee signed SB1237 into law on Thursday, April 28th. The bill was introduced by Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald.)
According to the Tennessee General Assembly, a student that is enrolled in a private school in the state of Tennessee is only eligible to participate in sports activity where “membership in the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association is required, in accordance with the student’s immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth”
While this amendment to the bill allows for schools to prohibit a student from joining a team based on their “biological sex,” it does allow for female students to participate in male sporting events if there is not a separate team for that sport.
The governor has signed off on several similar measures in the past. In April of 2022. Chalkbeat Tennessee reporter Marta W. Aldrich reported that HB1895, attached “financial penalties to a 2021 law that prohibited trans athletes from competing on middle and high school teams based on their gender identity.” A similar bill also prohibited males from participating in sports “designated for females,” on the collegiate level.
In 2021, Hensley introduced SB0228, which stated that a student’s eligibility for a specific sport in public middle and high schools, must be determined by “the student’s sex at the time of the student’s birth, as indicated on the student’s original birth certificate.”
This bill is currently at the center of the lawsuit L.E. v. Lee filed by the American Civil Liberties Union {ACLU} of Tennessee, Lamda Legal, and the law firm of Wilmer Hale. According to the ACLU, 15-year-old Luc Esquievel and his family have sued the state of Tennessee, as he was not able to try out for the boys’ golf team at Farragut High School in Knoxville, Tennessee.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, Tennessee is one of 21 states that have bans on transgender youth participation in sports.
