ATLANTA — A Georgia lawmaker wants to ban sporting events from public facilities if a player is competing in a sport that does not align with their biological sex.

Newly elected GOP state Rep. Philip Singleton, R-Sharpsburg, prefiled the Student Athlete Protection Act that requires government and public recreation sports facilities to host “single sex sports” at which “genetic males and genetic females are required to compete in their biological matching fields.” 

The law would extend to schools, counties and cities.

“Public and governmental facilities shall not be utilized for athletic competitions in which a person who is not a biological male is allowed to participate in athletic events conducted exclusively for males or a person who is not a biological female is allowed to participate in athletic events conducted exclusively for females,” the bill reads.

Singleton told CNHI Friday, the legislation is so “every single student athlete in Georgia has the ability to compete in fair and open competition,” but transgender advocates are labeling it as clear discrimination against transgender youth.

Singleton said similar bills are being proposed in states such as Tennessee, but his bill differs because it lets the specific athletic associations decide which sporting events are segregated based on sex and which are gender neutral.

The bill basically means that if athletic associations determine sporting events are going to be gender specific, he said, and if they don’t follow their own decision, they won’t be allowed to use government-funded recreation sites.

“I’ve got a 12-year-old boy that is a wrestler, but the wrestling association he is in is gender neutral. So, I have a reasonable expectation he can wrestle against biological boys or girls. I don’t have a problem with that,” Singleton said. “But if the association was telling me that he was going to be competing against people in the same biological gender, then I think there’s a reasonable expectation that that should be enforced.”

When asked if he considered this bill discriminatory against transgender individuals who may not identify as their biological sex, Singleton said, for him, the bill doesn’t have any relation to transgender issues.

“Every athlete that wants to compete in Georgia should have the ability to compete,” he said. “The intent is that everyone, regardless of their age, their sex, their gender, how they identify everyone should have the ability to compete and compete fairly so that you know this, in my view, this has nothing to do with the transgender argument.”

Georgia hasn’t defined points at which an individual transitioning sexes has completely transitioned, Singleton said, his bill also does not seek to do this either. 

“In my view, if there’s someone that’s in transition. If they are, if they are biologically male, and it’s a male sport they should be competing against other biological males. If their gender transition is complete, that’s a whole different story,” Singleton said. “If you’re a biological male and you’re in the middle of your treatments, but you’re not completely transitioned, there’s a significant, athletically, there’s a significant difference in the way your body functions in those individual sports, and someone (who) is biologically female.”

Just days ago, a Tennessee lawmaker introduced similar legislation that would require student-athletes to play on the sports teams dictated by their biological sex.

Schools cannot accept a birth certificate “that has been revised or amended with respect to the sex of an athlete,” that bill reads. Any school found to have violated the law “is immediately ineligible to continue to receive public funds of any type from this state or a local government.”

The Tennessee lawmaker who proposed the legislation said it was in direct response to transgender athletes competing in sports that do not align with their biological sex at birth.

Transgender advocates said the legislation targets the most vulnerable transgender individuals — transgender youth. Georgia Equality, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, said that research shows that 75% of transgender youths feel unsafe at school.

“The introduction of this legislation is a shameful attack on some of the most vulnerable students, those who identify as transgender,” the organization said in a statement. “Transgender people are human beings, who exist in every facet of our society, and have for years and years. Transgender athletes participate in sports for the same reasons as everyone else – to get and stay healthy, be part of a team, be a part of a sport they love, and build camaraderie with their peers.”

Legislators are using sports as a “wedge issue,” Georgia Equality said.

“It’s particularly heartbreaking when politicians attempt to attack transgender high schoolers,” the statement continues. “Growing up is hard enough for everyone, and it can be particularly painful for transgender students. The last thing our nation’s young people need is politicians making it even harder by singling them out for their own political gain, and increasing their already high risk of bullying and harassment.”

This isn’t the only legislation being proposed this session that has implications for the transgender community.

Ginny Ehrhart, a Marietta Republican, announced she will be proposing legislation that would ban trans-related health care for minors in Georgia.

Ehrhart’s bill, titled the “Vulnerable Child Protection Act” for the upcoming 2020 session, would make it “ a felony to perform radical surgery on, or administer drugs to, a minor child for the purpose of attempting to change a minor’s gender.”

Ehrhart is among several GOP lawmakers in three states targeting trans-related health care for minors including treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery.

Some transgender advocates speculate the sudden appearance of similar legislative agendas in three states is a tactic to rally a conservative base of voters ahead of the 2020 election.

James Woodall, president of the Georgia NAACP, told CNHI that Singleton’s legislation and any other legislation discriminating based on sex and gender violates Title IX protections under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“No person in this country, on the basis of sex, can be excluded from participation in anything … under any program or activity that receives financial assistance from the federal government.” Woodall said. “What he is proposing is not only unconstitutional, it is also immoral because we are allowing the state to dictate who can be what, when, where, and also define what a human being is.”