Governor Kim Reynolds proposed a bill for lawmakers to create that would ban transgendered girls from competing in high school girls sports.

House District 47 Representative Phil Thompson says previous legislation was introduced earlier on in the session, but none of the bills got through the House. He explains that a similar bill was passed through the South Dakota legislature, but the governor vetoed the bill, which Thompson says they didn’t want the same problem to happen in Iowa.

“We didn’t want to put the governor in a situation that wasn’t carefully crafted enough to, we have some tricky code to navigate. So we wanted to make sure we didn’t put anything in front of her that put her in a legal bind that forced her to do what Governor (Kristi) Noem did over in South Dakota.”

Thompson says he supports a bill that would ban transgendered girls from competing in high school girls sports.

“Just look at the difference of any track times. Basically any new track record at the high school level has been busted by female trans-athletes. We’re just seeing this advantage and it’s really sort of unfair to allow somebody who went through puberty, who’s developed, had male hormones, and gone through male puberty to compete. It’s certainly an advantage and a lot of us believe it’s an unfair advantage.”

Thompson believes the legislation received late support from the governor and could not get approved this session.