Wisconsin lawmakers and community members debated a Republican-backed bill Tuesday that would ban transgender women attending University of Wisconsin System schools and Wisconsin technical colleges from participating on teams or playing sports that reflect their gender identity.
The bill, authored by Rep. Barabra Dittrich, R-Oconomowoc, and Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, would require each UW institution and technical college to designate each athletic team or sport by sex — for “males” or “men,” or for “females” or “women.”
The bill would further prohibit male students from participating on an athletic team or sport designated for females as well as bar male students from using locker rooms designated for females. While the bill currently doesn’t contain a definition of locker rooms, Dittrich said at Tuesday’s public hearing that they are working to add an amendment to clarify.
Moms for Liberty activist Scarlett Johnson spoke in favor of the legislation, sharing that her daughters already experience tough competition against other female athletes for scholarships
“It is so unfair to add another level of difficulty by allowing a biological male to compete with her for a spot on a team for a scholarship, it's just fundamentally unfair. Because biology is real, we cannot wish away biological reality just because recognizing it may hurt someone's feelings,” Johnson said.
Dittrich said she authored the bill so everyone has a “fair shot” adding that it’s “problematic” that a minority is dictating “what happens here,” adding that a majority of Americans are in favor of legislation like hers. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 66% of U.S. adults favor or strongly favor laws and policies that require transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth.
During the hearing, Democratic lawmakers pushed back on the bill and its relevance. Rep. Angela Stroud, D-Ashland, said “the most natural thing in the world is variability,” emphasizing the importance of not narrowly defining complex issues.
Stroud also said it’s important to have a sense of the accurate scale of the issue being debated, noting that NCAA President Charlie Baker said he is aware of fewer than 10 current transgender collegiate athletes.
In response to this statistic, Dittrich said “frankly, one athlete is one too many” and that it harms females.
Jennifer Keeler, a nonbinary graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison , spoke about the community they found when playing sports and expressed concerns about how this bill could impact the mental health of transgender athletes.
“I had a career-ending injury that was not the result of a man or trans woman,” Keeler said. “I just hope you guys consider that excluding people from sports is going to make them very depressed, as I was very depressed, and it'd be even more devastating if you had to be excluded because of who you are as a person.”
Dittrich and Hutton proposed a similar bill that would bar transgender girls in Wisconsin K-12 schools from participating on teams or playing sports that reflect their gender identity. The Assembly Committee on Education debated the bill on March 6.
A total of 14 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced during the 2024 legislative session, all of which failed to pass the Legislature or were vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers. Evers has promised to veto legislation targeting transgender Wisconsinites.
Anna Kleiber is the state news editor for The Daily Cardinal. She previously served as the arts editor. Anna has written in-depth on elections, legislative maps and campus news. She has interned with WisPolitics and Madison Magazine. Follow her on X at @annakleiber03.
