Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law last week that bans transgendered females from competing in female sports. 

The new law doesn’t allow for transgendered females to compete in female sports in all school levels, both public and private, as well as collegiate sports. District 47 Representative Phil Thompson says while there were a couple of cases where this was an issue in northwest Iowa, the Legislature felt they needed to make sure this didn’t become a larger problem in the future.

“We were seeing it in other states and we just wanted to make sure that the question of a female not being awarded a scholarship or not having the opportunity to participate in sports because of a biological male kind of nudging them out of that spot. We just wanted to make sure that it continued to be a hypothetical question. This was proactive and it was starting to come up more and more in different school districts. So we just wanted to make sure that we had standard guidance for how to handle this situation moving forward.”   

Greene County School District Activities Director Todd Gordon says they haven’t had transgender females competing in sports, but they do have transgender males competing in boys sports, which this new law doesn’t address. Gordon points out regardless of what new laws come about or how it might impact a culture, he believes in accepting who individuals are.

“To me that’s the most important thing is we value children, we value kids, and we value them as people. Whatever your personal views might be on situations, it comes down to caring about people first. And if you put people first, then you do what you need to do within the perimeters that you’re given to help and to work with them.”    

Thompson adds the new law wasn’t intended to creating an isolating culture for transgender females, but that biological females have an even playing field when it comes to sports.  

 The new law became effective last Thursday.