South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed a law that prevents gender dysphoric males from competing against female athletes at the K-12 and collegiate levels.
On Tuesday, McMaster signed HB 4608 or the “Save Women’s Sports Act” into law, which requires middle school, high school, and college student athletes to compete in sports leagues according to their assigned sex at birth.
The Save Women’s Sports Act is now the law of the land in South Carolina. We have to do everything we can to protect the young men and women in our state who choose to pursue athletic competition, and that’s why I proudly signed this bill into law yesterday.
— Gov. Henry McMaster (@henrymcmaster) May 17, 2022
“We have to do everything we can to protect the young men and women in our state who choose to pursue athletic competition, and that’s why I proudly signed this bill into law,” he tweeted. “It’s common sense, boys should play boys sports and girls should play girls sports.”
The law would prohibit males who identify as female from competing against women, arguing that naturally born women are at a disadvantage when pitted against athletes who were born men.
“That will protect those who are born biologically as females from having to compete against those who are born biologically as males but identify as females,” said State Senator Richard Cash, who helped advance the law through the legislature
Social conservative groups such as the American Principles Project applauded the state’s decision.
“Male athletes do not belong in our daughters’ sports, period. This is a view shared by an overwhelming majority of Americans, as our recent polling of battleground states has shown. Biology matters, and no amount of gaslighting by woke ideologues will change that,” said Terry Schilling, president of the group.
This comes after biological male swimmer, William “Lia” Thomas, competed on the women’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania this season and won a race recently at the NCAA 500-yard freestyle championship.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denounced Thomas as the winner of the championship, saying Emma Weyant, who came in second, should’ve won instead.
“She earned that. We need to honor that appropriately,” DeSantis told reporters of Weyant. “The NCAA is basically takings efforts to destroy women’s athletics.”
Last year, DeSantis also signed a law that banned transgender athletes from joining female teams.
“I can tell you this: in Florida, girls are going to play girls’ sports, and boys are going to play boys’ sports,” the governor said after signing the bill. “That’s what we’re doing, and we’re going to make sure that that’s the reality.”
