South Dakota Governor Noem to Sign Women's Fairness in Sports Bill
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, photo by Gage Skidmore
Update: On March 19th, Governor Noem announced that she would be vetoing the bill, due to concerns over the bill's "vague and overly broad language." She sent the bill back with proposed revisions, including that the legislature amend the bill to be limited to only elementary and secondary school athletics.
On Monday afternoon, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem announced that she would sign HB1217, the Women’s Fairness in Sports bill.
The bill would ensure that among athletic teams sponsored by public schools or funds, “A team or sport designated as being female is available only to participants who are female, based on their biological sex.”
The Women’s Fairness in Sports bill is the seventh attempt to protect women’s sports in the past few years after the South Dakota High School Activities Association enacted a policy that allows male students to compete in women’s and girls’ sports if they claim to identify as female.
The state faced pushback last year over the proposed bill HB1057, which would have made it illegal for medical professionals to perform elective cosmetic surgery on minors “for the purpose of attempting to change or affirm the minor's perception of the minor's sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the minor's sex.” Opponents of the bill threatened the state with economic consequences should it pass. Citing a similar incident in North Carolina, opponents argued that large sporting events hosted by the NBA and NCAA may refuse to come to the state if the bill to protect children became law.
However, polling sponsored by WoLF in February found that bills such as HB1057 and HB1217 to protect women and children from the harmful impacts of “gender identity” policies were widely popular among South Dakota voters. A majority of voters (56.81%) said they believed Governor Noem should stand up to the corporations threatening to boycott or withhold jobs and investments and pass a bill to protect women’s single-sex spaces. With her statement of support for HB1217, put forth on International Women’s Day, she’s done just that.
“Do you agree or disagree that Governor Kristi Noem should stand up to corporate threats and boycotts to ensure that legislation is passed that would restrict people who were born male, but who now identify as female from playing on women’s sports teams and sharing private facilities like bathrooms and locker room?” (sample size: 600, source)
In 2020, Idaho became the first state to keep women’s sports single-sex, however that bill is currently being challenged by a male college student, with support from the ACLU, who wants to run on the women’s track team.
Last week, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced that he would sign a similar bill in his state, saying, “I will sign our bill to protect young girls from being forced to compete with biological males for athletic opportunities. It’s crazy we have to address it, but the Biden E.O. forced the issue. Adults? That’s on them. But the push for kids to adopt transgenderism is just wrong.”
And this is just the beginning. Nearly half of the country—twenty-one states—currently have pending legislation to protect women’s sports.