Democratic Kentucky Governor refuses to ban males from women’s sports

Laurel Duggan, DCNF

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have barred males from competing in girls’ sports.

Beshear said the legislation was discriminatory in his veto letter. The state legislature has a supermajority and could overturn the veto, although the bill’s sponsors did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s inquiries about whether they would.

Kentucky’s Senate Bill 83 would have required school sports teams to be designated by sex or co-ed, and biological sex would be determined by the sex listed on a student’s original birth certificate.

Beshear’s Wednesday veto letter referenced recent decisions by the governors of Indiana and Utah to veto similar legislation due to the risk of lawsuits and lack of examples of trans athletes in their states wining unfairly. Beshear agreed with these points, but primarily focused on the policies of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA), which he said were more fair and appropriate.

KHSAA policies allow transgender students to compete in the sport of their choice if they have had their gender legally changed and undergone medical sex-change procedures, Beshear explained.

Beshear claimed in his veto letter that the legislation would have imposed “a complete ban on transgender children to compete in girls’ sports.” The bill requires students of all gender identities compete in sports according to their biological sex. It would not, for example, ban transgender children who are biologically female but identify as male from competing in girls’ sports.

The woke movement is alive & well in the KY Governor’s mansion after today’s vetoes of SB83 & SB1. A Governor who thinks that decades of females fighting for sports equality & replaced by transgender competition is not tuned into the people of the Commonwealth.

— Max Wise (@maxwellwise) April 7, 2022

“The woke movement is alive & well in the KY Governor’s mansion after today’s vetoes of SB83 & SB1,” state Senator Max Wise wrote on Twitter. “ A Governor who thinks that decades of females fighting for sports equality & replaced by transgender competition is not tuned into the people of the Commonwealth.”

Beshear’s office directed the DCNF to the official veto letter but did not offer further comments.

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