Lawmaker Wants Transgender Children To Submit To Genital ‘Inspection’ Before Playing Sports

State Rep. Roger Hunt wants to enforce mandatory genital examinations to verify the physical gender of students before they can play sports.

Lawmakers are unhappy with a policy that passed in South Dakota last year, which allows students to decide which gender they identify as, and therefore, which gender group they compete with when playing sports.

According to the Rapid City Journal, the Legislature’s interim committee recently deliberated the issue and requested a draft of a potential state law that could remove a person’s right to decide for themselves.

State Rep. Roger Hunt (R) is so against the policy, he is adamant that children should be required to show their genitals prior to playing school sports to ensure they are playing on, what he considers, the right gender segregated team. Hunt, who believes gender is determined at conception, plans to introduce an intrusive measure that would literally require students to present their birth certificates and undergo visual genital inspections prior to participating in sports.

“This is South Dakota. We haven’t adopted the East Coast culture. We haven’t adopted the West Coast culture. We maintain our own culture,” the lawmaker said when talking about transgender rights.

This is not the first time Hunt has tried to enact anti-LGBT laws. In 2011, he sponsored a bill that would have made surrogacy illegal. According to ArgusLeader.com, the law would have made any verbal or written surrogacy agreement unenforceable, and would have kept parental rights with the woman who gave birth to the child, regardless of whether she was the genetic mother. The bill didn’t stop there though. It would have established civil penalties for any intended parent in a surrogacy agreement, and would have made it a felony for anyone to help establish surrogacy agreements. Doctors who assisted in medical procedures related to surrogacy agreements would have also faced felony charges.

And earlier this year, Rep. Hunt co-sponsored an anti-LGBT “religious freedom” bill.

Equality South Dakota noted Hunt’s 2011 bill was an attack on gay males who wanted to use surrogacy in their family building plans. It was killed by the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 9-3.

 

Image by Steven Pisano via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Huffington Post