Transform Arizona Schools held meetings in Phoenix and Tucson to look over the language around HB2706 to discuss its intent and brainstorm ways to block it from moving forward.
Currently, the Arizona Interscholastic Association represents 269 schools in every Arizona county. They have a protocol in place to ensure competitiveness and inclusion for trans youth, and HB2706 would destroy all of this progress. We noted the dehumanizing nature of the bill and contrasted the language with 10 other states that have proposed similar anti-trans bills.
We are unsure if Nancy Barto, Leo Biasiucci, Walt Blackman, Shawnna Bolick, Regina Cobb, Timothy Dunn, John Fillmore, Mark Finchem, Travis Grantham, Gail Griffin, John Kavanagh, Jay Lawrence, Becky Nutt, Joanne Osborne, Kevin Payne, Warren Petersen, Steve Pierce, Tony Rivero, Bret Roberts, Bob Thorpe, Ben Toma, Kelly Townsend, and Jeff Weninger know that the International Olympic Committee, the NCAA, and AIA already have policies in place to include transgender folks in competitive spaces. Transgender women have been competing since in the Olympics since 2004 and none have won any medals. We are concerned about the gender dispute mechanisms and lawsuit allowances activated by this bill. We worry about the unintended economic consequences and how a law like this could impact our NCAA eligibility for all athletes. We fear this will have a chilling effect on trans youth participating in any extracurricular activities for fear of being outed, humiliated, and bullied.
Equality Arizona is accepting proxy requests this week to help anyone who wants to sign up for RTS, the request-to-speak system, so that our legislators understand what an important issue this is to the LGBTQ community and everyone’s voice can be heard. If you need to have a proxy request please contact JP Martin at jp@equalityarizona.org. We currently have 190 folks signed in against the bill, and 21 in favor of it. We are preparing speakers to represent all aspects of how harmful this law can be, from athletes to coaches, to physicians, to parents - we have no room for these types of laws.
It’s vital this week that our legislators hear from you! Register now for Equality Lobby Day!
You can sign on to this letter to take a stand for fairness for all Arizona student athletes.