A bill by six Republican representatives attempts to use language as a weapon to systemically erase transgender and intersex people by institutionally imposing the gender binary in law to ban trans youth from participating in sports.

The proposed act creates barriers of surveillance that could require trans and gender-nonconforming athletes to ‘prove’ their gender to the school by policing their bodies through invasive tests that will be reviewed by a panel of physicians.

These laws do not care about protecting ‘women’ sports like most of the Republican sponsors claim.

The gender binary is an imposition on everyone, and as long as we continue practicing a binary system to classify people, toxic masculinity and patriarchal femininity will continue to inform how we treat each other, regardless of any of our genders.

Legislation that is informed by gender to determine ‘protection’ is a reproduction of bio-essentialist hierarchies.

Apart from spreading disinformation that adds to the legacy of dehumanizing trans folks, these bills are blatantly telling cisgender women that they are lesser than cisgender men.

Excluding trans girls and femme youth from participating in sports has negative outcomes for all youth, and this politics is a policing and surveillance of all bodies.

Arguments attempting to uphold differences based on “biological sex”, fall apart as you dig into the science of how genes, gonads, and hormones keep sex subject to change: “The truth is, your biological sex isn’t carved in stone, but a living system with the potential for change,” Neurobiologist Dr. Simón(e) D Sun writes.

Most sponsors behind anti-trans sports bans, don’t know any trans athletes in their states, and their legislative attacks follow a repetitive theme of erasure: they doesn’t use the word “transgender” even once, and perpetuates false narratives in its binary understanding of “biological sex.”

GA HB 372 has carried over from last year’s legislative attacks.