The state of Oklahoma has just issued a new requirement for public school student-athletes that will no doubt enrage the left.
Students wanting to participate in school sports must now complete a “biological sex affidavit” to ensure they are eligible to compete in certain events.
The new requirement comes on the heels of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s (R) signature on the “Save Women’s Sports Act” in March, which states that sports teams in public schools will be based only on competitors’ biological sex, from kindergarten through college, The Daily Wire reported.
“When it comes to sports and athletics, girls should compete against girls. Boys should compete against boys,” Stitt said at the time. “And let’s be very clear — that’s all this bill says.”
The executive director at the abortion and reproductive rights group Reproaction, Erin Matson, shared an affidavit Thursday from Woodall Public School in Tahlequah on her social media page, a post that made news last weekend.
“Do you understand what is happening? This has nothing to do with encouraging girls to be athletes,” Matson claimed. “This is totalitarianism. It is the white nationalist agenda. The anti-LGBTQ agenda. The anti-abortion agenda. It is all the same agenda.”
“This is real. Shared with permission,” she added.
Do you understand what is happening?
This has nothing to do with encouraging girls to be athletes.
This is totalitarianism. It is the white nationalist agenda. The anti-LGBTQ agenda. The anti-abortion agenda. It is all the same agenda.
This is real. Shared with permission. pic.twitter.com/CGZ1SN5jr2
— Erin Matson (@erintothemax) July 28, 2022
The superintendent of Woodall Public Schools, Ginger Knight, confirmed to NBC News in an email that the new state law requires districts to present the forms to students so they can fill them out if they want to take part in sports competitions.
The Daily Wire adds:
Oklahoma has become the first state to require an affidavit proving the student-athletes biological sex. Those under 18 can have their parent or guardian sign the document. Once the student turns 18 years old, they must sign the affidavit themselves. Student-athletes must sign an affidavit before each school year.
Other Oklahoma public schools have begun creating similar forms for students looking to participate in sports.
“We’re going to have to do this — we’re going to abide by the law,” Pat Dodson, superintendent of Grove Public Schools, said in an interview with KOAM News Now. “But I do think it’s just a little bit too much, and it’s an overreach on behalf of our legislators.”
Other opponents of the measure point to the federal Title IX, which the Department of Education last year issued guidance claiming that the department would interpret the statute as including protection of students based on ‘gender identity’ and sexual orientation rather than just on biological sex — an interpretation that Republicans have said is an overreach.
Not only that, but at what point do the rights of biological girls who ‘identify’ as such become violated? It seems obvious that their rights are put at risk when they are forced to compete against biological males, at any level and under any circumstance.
In any event, Oklahoma’s biological sex affidavit is likely to be both replicated in other states and challenged in federal court. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court will probably decide the issue.
But the fact that states have to enact legislation to protect biologically female students nearly 60 years after federal legislation was passed to do that very thing is in and of itself telling about our current cultural status.
