Bill to exclude transgender women from sports dead this legislative session

A bill to exclude transgender women from women’s sports won’t move forward this legislative session, according to N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland).

The bill simply isn’t needed as there has been no verifiable problem with transgender women playing sports in North Carolina, Moore told the Associated Press Thursday.

“The House will not be taking up that bill,” Moore told The Associated Press. “We’ve spoken with the bill sponsors and others and simply believe that there’s not a need to take it up at this time.”

The announcement follows word last week from the office of Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) that a bill to bar gender-affirming treatment for transgender youth would not move forward as it did not have the votes to overcome a veto from Gov. Roy Cooper.

Both bills faced pressure from state and national sports organizations, including the NCAA, which has itself been feeling pressure to pull tournaments from states that have already passed such bills. States that have passed such bills have already seen legal challenges.

Moore denied to the AP that the announcement of Apple’s new East Coast campus coming to the state, and bringing 3,000 jobs, was related. But Gov. Roy Cooper said the company told him the partial repeal of HB2, which excluded LGBTQ people from non-discrimination laws, helped with the company’d decision.

On Thursday Moore told the News & Observer that the the legislature shouldn’t go looking for volatile social issues to get into.

“We had no examples of where this is really a problem and I’m a believer that you shouldn’t pass legislation unless there’s a problem you’re trying to address,” Moore told the paper. “I mean, obviously, these things can spin up and get really controversial and all of that so you know before you go down that road, there needs to be, I would say, an articulated problem.”