Estados americanos consideram medidas para impedir atletas transexuais de competir no esporte feminino. Legisladores por trás das novas propostas argumentam que atletas transgêneros têm vantagens físicas naturais sobre mulheres biológicas.”

States Weigh Measures to Stop Transgender Athletes From Competing in Women’s Sports

Lawmakers behind bills argue transgender female athletes have natural physical advantages over biological females

Bloomfield High School transgender athlete Terry Miller, second from left, won the final of the 55-meter dash in a Connecticut girls track meet in New Haven last February. PHOTO: PAT EATON-ROBB/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jacob Gershman - More statehouses are wading into the contentious debate over the participation of transgender athletes in men’s and women’s sports.

In recent weeks, Republican legislators in at least five states have drafted measures aimed at preventing athletes from competing in categories different than their biological sex. Lawmakers say they are specifically concerned about female athletes facing unfair competition.

The bills—introduced or prefiled in New Hampshire, Washington, Georgia, Tennessee and Missouri—reflect growing attention around the issue of whether transgender-rights protections are leading to unfair competition in women’s sports.

Policies regulating the eligibility of transgender high-school athletes are usually set by school associations and vary. In about a third of states, transgender students can freely compete on teams of the gender they identify with, according to transathlete.com, which tracks athletics policies nationwide.

Like the National Collegiate Athletic Association, some high-school associations allow transgender females to participate on girls’ teams if they meet certain conditions, such as completing a period of testosterone-suppression treatment or gender-reassignment surgery. Several other states lack formal guidelines.

So far most of the bills apply to high-school-aged students and don’t clearly intersect with NCAA guidelines, which allow transgender female athletes to compete on women’s college teams after completing a year of testosterone-suppression treatment.

Legislators behind the measures say they are trying to ensure an even playing field for girls, arguing that transgender female athletes have natural physical advantages over biological females, including differences in muscle mass, bone strength, lung capacity and heart size.

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Critics say the legislation is unnecessary and could raise constitutional concerns about due process and discrimination.

Lawmakers interviewed said they couldn’t point to eligibility disputes in their own states, but cited examples elsewhere such as in Connecticut, where two transgender female high-schoolers recently dominated the state’s girls indoor track championships. A conservative legal group last year filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education on behalf of three female high-school athletes claiming Connecticut’s inclusive transgender policy is unlawfully unfair.

“I’m just trying to maintain fairness,” said Republican Tennessee Rep. Bruce Griffey, sponsor of a trans-athlete bill. “I don’t want girls to be at a disadvantage.”

His bill would restrict public funding to schools that allow athletics participation based on students’ declared gender identity—as opposed to a student’s biological sex at birth—and would subject disobeying school officials to fines. Mr. Griffey said he expects his proposal to have “quite a few” co-sponsors and a good shot at passage.

Chase Strangio, a transgender attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said policies that strictly divide athletes by their biological sex discourage transgender children from participating in competitive sports.

He thinks the concerns about competitive fairness are overblown and misguided and likened the Republican lawmakers’ push for the measures to the recent political and legal fights over transgender bathroom access.

“I think it will be the year of the trans-athletes bills in the way that 2016 was the year of the trans-bathroom bills,” Mr. Strangio said.

South Dakota lawmakers debated but declined to pass similar legislation last year. The latest measures vary in wording, with some applying only to female sports programs.

A bill in New Hampshire, for example, says school-sponsored sports and teams designated for women “shall only be open to students of the female sex.” It states that a disqualified student can prove she is female by submitting a physician-signed statement attesting to the student’s reproductive anatomy, testosterone levels and sex chromosomes.

“There’s so much confusion nationally,” said Georgia Rep. Philip Singleton, a Republican who released a draft of a bill he plans to officially introduce later this month.

His bill would bar athletic associations from using public facilities for gender-separated events if athletes aren’t divided by their biological sex.

“I want to make sure we’re ahead of the curve,” said Mr. Singleton. “I think it’s important to define things.”