JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin filed a resolution this week that could require students to participate in single-gender, statewide activity association events in the division pertaining to the gender assigned at birth.
The resolution would put a constitutional amendment mandating students participate in events corresponding to the individual’s “biological sex” to a vote.
“One of the things that government should do is try to make sure we have a level playing field so that some people don’t get an unfair advantage,” O’Laughlin said. “If you have a daughter, and she has practiced and trained and done everything she could do to be excellent in a sport, and if she enters a race and a male who now identifies as a female enters the race and wins, that’s patently unfair.”
“It’s not an issue of my trying to determine someone else’s lifestyle,” she said. “We should try to keep things on a level playing field.”
O’Laughlin, a Republican and a member of the Senate Conservative Caucus, argued not only do students spend effort on training for sports, but parents can also shell out time and money.
A representative for PROMO, a Missouri LGBTQ advocacy group, said, “Every student deserves a fair chance to succeed in school and prepare for their future — including students who are transgender.”
“School administrators have long been able to accommodate the needs of their students without banning transgender students from student activities and common spaces,” Shira Berkowitz, PROMO’s communications manager, told The Missouri Times. “It can be hard to understand what it means to be transgender, especially if you’ve never met a transgender person. Transgender students are part of our school communities, and like other students, they’re there to learn, graduate, and prepare for their future.”
SJR 50 was submitted during pre-filing this week.
A copy provided to The Missouri Times stated: “Students participating in any event or activity, that is a single-gender event, organized by any statewide activity association shall be required to participate in the event corresponding to the student’s biological sex.” It further clarified “biological sex” to mean the gender assigned at birth.
Kaitlyn Schallhorn was the editor in chief of The Missouri Times from 2020-2022. She joined the newspaper in early 2019 after working as a reporter for Fox News in New York City.
Throughout her career, Kaitlyn has covered political campaigns across the U.S., including the 2016 presidential election, and humanitarian aid efforts in Africa and the Middle East.
She is a native of Missouri who studied journalism at Winthrop University in South Carolina. She is also an alumna of the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.
Contact Kaitlyn at kaitlyn@themissouritimes.com.
