How Gov. Noem’s Executive Orders Plan To Protect Women’s Sports

Since early March, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has talked about considering a bill that would ban transgender youth from participating in girls’ sports, issuing that it is harmful to competition and biologically unfair. This comes after President Joe Biden signed a handful of executive orders, including one that would prohibit “discrimination” based on gender identity in sports.

Biologically speaking, men are capable of building more muscle mass. Women’s sports were created to give girls a fair chance at the competition and to advance to the next level without men having certain physical advantages over them. The other side of the bill argues that this would be ‘discriminatory’ towards transgender people. Aren’t progressives supposed to be the party that “follows the science?” They can’t even acknowledge basic biological differences in athletics.

After days of reviewing the bill, Noem found issues with the style and form of the written law of House Bill 1217 and said she hopes lawmakers will agree to the changes she had been proposing. According to the structure and wording of the bill, conservatives argued that it could leave schools and team players open to lawsuits, as well as forcing school administration to prove sex, age, and lack of ‘performance-enhancing drugs.’

Noem previously rejected any calls to ban transgender from participating in girls’ sports at the collegiate level, adding that the National Collegiate Athletic Association already has “inclusion policies.” She failed to come to an agreement with lawmakers over the language and structure of the bill, adding that it would not survive legal challenges from the radical left.

“While I certainly do not always agree with the actions these sanctioning bodies take, I understand that collegiate athletics requires such a system – a fifty-state patchwork is not workable,” Noem said.

After failed negotiations between state lawmakers and Noem, the governor eventually issued two executive orders as a temporary fix to their problem on Monday that would limit the participation on women’s and girl’s school sports teams to people who were biologically born a female. Lawmakers and Noem will schedule a special legislative session in late May or early June to revolve the legislative issues at hand with the bill.

“Only girls should play girls’ sports. Given the legislature’s failure to accept my proposed revisions to HB 1217, I am immediately signing two executive orders to address this issue: one to protect fairness in K-12 athletics, and another to do so in college athletics,” Noem tweeted.

Mark Miller, the governor’s general counsel, adds that the executive orders “speak for themselves” and ensure that the Department of Education and Board of Regents takes steps that only girls play girls’ sports and that athletes must participate in sports that match their biological sex at birth.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee also signed a bill that would require athletes to compete in school sports according to their sex at birth. He said this would preserve women’s athletics and ensure fair competition in sports. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson both signed similar legislation into law. Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge said they pushed the bill in late February because they didn’t want common sense “overshadowed by so-called political correctness.” She adds that this bill will ensure the integrity of girls and women in sports.

Idaho passed a similar law in March 2020 but was challenged by a lawsuit in April that was looking to suspend the law entirely. A U.S district judge eventually granted an injunction against it in August due to the NCAA’s policy on transgender athletes. This is exactly what Gov. Noem was warning lawmakers about in regards to language in her bill.

This is like when progressives came up with the idea of “participation trophies” for athletes who didn’t win. All feelings and no reality or context to it whatsoever.