Georgia
Georgia GOP-controlled Senate passes ban on trans girls from school sports teams • Georgia Recorder
The Georgia state Senate Thursday passed legislation banning transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in schools along mostly party lines, and the bill’s sponsor also suggested that the body will take action to ban puberty-blocking drugs.
“The recognition of female sport is important because without a boundary around female sport that excludes male advantage, males would dominate every major sporting competition,” said sponsor Cumming Republican Greg Dolezal.
“The purpose is to include females by excluding males,” he added. “That’s part and parcel to the mere existence of female sport.”
Senate Bill 1 passed 35-17, with Democratic Sens. Freddie Powell Sims of Dawson and Ed Harbison of Columbus joining their Republican colleagues in support.
Separately, House Speaker Jon Burns held a press conference Tuesday to unveil his chamber’s plan for a ban on transgender girls playing girls’ sports.
Before either bill can become law, it will need to pass both chambers by early April, and both Burns and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones will likely be jockeying to ensure their version is the one to experience the squiggle of Gov. Brian Kemp’s bill-signing pen.
Jones and Burns may have had a chance to hash out the differences on a recent trip. Both men were in Washington Wednesday as President Donald Trump signed an executive order that also seeks to ban transgender girls from playing girls’ sports.
All the attention has not been pleasant for many trans Georgians, who call recent sports bans and other legislative and executive actions a slap in the face.
“I was crying most of yesterday because I found out that the executive order was going to happen around 24 hours before it did, and then at that point I was like, oh my gosh, between that and SB1, basically everyone was trying to keep me from playing,” said Soju Hokari, a transgender Emory University student who plays ultimate, also known as ultimate Frisbee, for the school’s gender expansive and women’s team as well as for Atlanta Soul, a local semi-professional team.
Hokari said under Trump’s executive order and the proposed state law, she could continue to play for Atlanta Soul but not at Emory. The bill would apply to interscholastic teams of all grade levels and colleges, both public colleges and private colleges that compete against public schools.
She said ultimate leagues emphasize gender inclusivity across all levels. In 2020 USA Ultimate adopted a gender inclusion policy with three divisions, men’s, women’s and mixed, but recommends that all organizers allow players to compete in whichever division they feel most comfortable with.
Hokari said the bill oversteps decisions made by leagues, which are closer to the specific needs of athletes than the state or federal government.
“I personally think that all trans athletes should just be able to play, but the leagues all have these mechanisms in place to try to have a sport-specific way of ensuring fairness and inclusion in their sports, and the problem with the law is that it’s trying to supersede that by being like, ‘actually, we know better than these individual sports.’”
Democrats called the bill a solution in search of a problem, arguing that transgender people make up less than 1% of the state’s population and an even smaller subset of transgender Georgians are student athletes.
Republicans often cite swimmer Riley Gaines, the namesake of the House bill, who became an icon for the movement against transgender participation in girls’ sports after she and other swimmers competed against and shared a locker room with a transgender woman at a 2022 championship held at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
The NCAA changed its eligibility rules after that competition following numerous complaints.
Stone Mountain Democratic Sen. Kim Jackson offered an amendment she said would have addressed issues that are more likely to prevent girls from playing sports than transgender competitors. The bill called for measures like equalizing pay for coaches and requiring equal access to fields and equipment for girls’ and boys’ teams.
In a floor debate, Democrats said the bill could lead to challenges over cisgender female athletes who may not look conventionally feminine, or that it could require transgender boys, who may appear masculine and have bigger muscles because of testosterone injections, to play on girls’ teams.
“So then a trans boy will now compete in girls’ sports?” asked Savannah Democratic Rep. Derek Mallow.
“A trans girl – a trans boy – a female. Let’s take the trans thing off. Let’s speak to this in terms of biology, in terms of females,” Dolezal said. “Females will compete in female sport, and males will compete in male sport. I believe there are other bills that currently do address or will address the puberty blockers or even the injection of testosterone.”
“That’s not what the core of this bill discusses or contemplates,” he added. “I think we may see some downstream changes that might even change the reality or potential for what you’re talking about.”
Savannah Republican Sen. Ben Watson has filed a bill that would ban the use of puberty blockers or hormone therapy on minors.
Both versions of the ban specify that people assigned male at birth cannot play on interscholastic teams for people assigned female at birth, but girls would be allowed to play on boys’ teams under some circumstances. They also specify that schools must maintain separate locker facilities for either gender and outline methods to complain for athletes who feel their rights have been infringed.
Frontline Policy, an influential evangelical conservative lobbying group, made an expanded transgender sports ban a top priority. Speaking after Burns’ press conference Tuesday, Frontline founder and president Cole Muzio said he’s neutral between the House and Senate bills.
“We just want girls protected in the state of Georgia, and I think the House has done a great job with this piece of legislation, very close to what we’ve advocated for,” he said. “The Senate, I know has been working hard on this, and I think there’s unity in this building between the governor’s office, the Speaker of the House and the Senate. Good language is going to pass, so we’re excited to see what happens.”
Senior reporter Stanley Dunlap contributed to this report.
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Georgia
Mom says viral video shows her being booted from Georgia restaurant for breastfeeding her baby
Aris Kopiec says she felt “belittled” after capturing video of a man yelling at her holding her sleeping baby inside Toccoa Riverside Restaurant. (Credit: @ariskopes/Instagram)
A Florida mother says a man she believed to be the owner of a popular riverside restaurant in Georgia yelled at her and ordered her to leave after she breastfed her infant — an encounter she says she recorded on her cellphone that shows a man shouting, “Get on out of here!”
The incident happened at Toccoa Riverside Restaurant in Blue Ridge, according to Aris Kopiec, and has since spread widely online, reigniting scrutiny of the business’ treatment of young families.
Kopiec told FOX Business she was dining with her husband, three young daughters — ages 4, 2 and 4 months — and family friends when her baby began to cry.
She said she latched her infant, covered up immediately, and ensured she was fully concealed from the view of anyone except her own table.
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The Kopiec family dined at the Toccoa Riverside Restaurant together with friends before the viral video incident happened. (Courtesy of Shyla Shoots / Fox News)
“The only people who could see me were at my table,” she said. “I covered myself immediately.”
Kopiec said she pulled her shirt back down and was preparing to take her older children outside when she bumped into either a chair or another guest in the crowded enclosed porch area. That, she says, is when the restaurant’s owner stepped toward her.
“He looked at me and said, ‘You can’t do that here,’” Kopiec recalled. “I wasn’t even breastfeeding at that point. I was holding my baby in one arm and helping my kids with the other. He wouldn’t let me get any words out. He kept saying, ‘I have to protect my restaurant. You need to go to a corner.’”
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A mother says she recorded a Georgia restaurant’s owner shouting at her after she breastfed her child. (@ariskopes via Instagram / Fox News)
Kopiec said she and her friend took the older children outside to wait while their spouses paid inside. Kopiec said staff apologized to the men in the group, but not to her.
She said when she returned to gather her belongings, the confrontation escalated. She said she calmly informed the man she claims is the owner that Georgia law explicitly protects breastfeeding in public places.
“I just told him, if he wanted to protect his restaurant, he should follow the law,” she said. “That’s when he lost his mind.”
Kopiec said the man refused to give his name. After her friend mentioned having his photograph, Kopiec began recording.
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Kopiec told FOX Business that staff at the restaurant apologized to her husband and her friend’s husband, but not her. (Courtesy of Shyla Shoots / Fox News)
In the video she shared with FOX Business, a man standing behind the counter shouts, “Get on out of here!” as Kopiec holds her infant in her arms.
“It was so aggressive,” she said. “I knew I had to get my kids out of there.”
Kopiec left the restaurant shaken.
“Honestly, I felt like I was in the wrong,” she said. “My instinct was to apologize. But then I reminded myself — women have a legal right to breastfeed. I did nothing wrong.”
Public records and local business listings confirm 67-year-old Tim Richter as the owner of Toccoa Riverside Restaurant. In September, a spotlight from the Fannin County Chamber of Commerce via Facebook also identified Richter as the longtime owner and praised the restaurant’s hospitality, a characterization many online commenters have contrasted sharply with the tone in the new viral video.
In a phone call with FOX Business, a man who identified himself as the restaurant’s owner declined to confirm whether he is the individual shown in the video. He defended the business, saying, “I’ve had the restaurant for thirty-three years. We’ve been breastfeeding for thirty-three years,” and claimed the incident had been “staged for clicks.”
Toccoa Riverside Restaurant did not provide any further comment.
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Aris Kopiec said she never felt so “belittled” as when the man she believes to be the owner of Toccoa Riverside Restaurant yelled at her for feeding her baby. (Courtesy of Shyla Shoots / Fox News)
Georgia law states that a mother may breastfeed “in any location where the mother and baby are otherwise authorized to be,” protecting nursing mothers from being removed or restricted for feeding their children.
Etiquette expert and author Alison Cheperdak told FOX Business the filmed confrontation raises serious concerns. Cheperdak’s etiquette book for everyday situations, “Was it Something I Said?” is set to publish early next spring.
“Breastfeeding is natural and legally protected,” Cheperdak said. “Hospitality is about care, not confrontation, and raising one’s voice at a guest is never acceptable.”
She added that a mother owes no apology for feeding her child.
“A calm explanation is appropriate, but the responsibility is on the restaurant to treat her with respect,” she said. “Even if a restaurant wants a quieter atmosphere, policies should never undermine basic respect for families.”
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A Georgia restaurant implemented a surcharge for “adults unable to parent,” on their menu. (WAGAweb)
Local Atlanta outlets, as well as Food and Wine, reported in 2023 that Toccoa Riverside raised eyebrows for posting an “adult surcharge” for parents deemed “unable to parent,” sparking backlash from families who said they had been reprimanded for their children’s behavior.
A FOX 5 Atlanta report on the surcharge controversy said parents claimed the owner had scolded their children and allegedly made a 3-year-old cry.
Kopiec said she hopes the attention leads to positive change. “Every nursing mom deserves to feel safe feeding her baby,” she said. “We have a legal right to breastfeed, period.”
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As for the restaurant, she said she has chosen not to hold onto anger. “I’ve chosen to forgive,” she said. “But I would really like to see them welcome breastfeeding moms.”
The video continues to circulate widely online, where commenters are debating breastfeeding protections and the treatment of young mothers and infants in public spaces.
No. 6 Ole Miss (11-1, 7-1 SEC) will host the Tulane Green Wave at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium next Saturday in what will be the Rebels’ College Football Playoff debut.
After a historic 2025 campaign for the program in Oxford, Pete Golding and Co. will have home-field advantage in the first-round of the College Football Playoff against a fiery Tulane squad.
“I think this is something that this program is going to be the expectation moving forward. That’s something that I’m used to,” head coach Pete Golding said.
“That’s something when you invest a lot into programs and you’re aligned from the top down, from the chancellor to the athletic director to the head football coach to a really good growth collective led by Walker Jones and your elite, really good players, this should be the norm.”
With all eyes on the first-round showdown, the winner of the Dec. 20 matchup will hit the road to New Orleans (La.) to take on the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl at the Caesars SuperDome the following weekend.
Which way does ESPN see the first-round matchup going? Who will take on the Georgia Bulldogs on Dec. 27?
The Game Information: College Football Playoff
Matchup: Ole Miss Rebels vs. Tulane Green Wave
Kickoff Time: 2:30 p.m. CT
Venue: Vaught-Hemingway Stadium
TV Channel: TNT
Radio: Ole Miss Sports Radio Network
Ole Miss Rebels Record: 11-1 (7-1 SEC)
Tulane Green Wave Record: 11-2 (7-1 AAC)
Odds, Spread and Total: College Football PlayoffEmpty heading
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Spread
- Ole Miss: -17.5 (-105)
- Tulane Green Wave: +17.5 (-115)
Moneyline
- Ole Miss: -900
- Tulane Green Wave: +590
Total
- Over 56.5 (-114)
- Under 56.5 (-106)
Ole Miss is currently listed as 17.5-point favorites in the program’s College Football Playoff debut against the Tulane Green Wave.
The over/under for the matchup sits at 56.5 with the Ole Miss offense looking to wreak havoc against the Green Wave.
According to the ESPN Football Power Index, the Ole Miss Rebels have a 84 percent chance to take down the Tulane Green Wave and advance to the quarterfinal round against the Georgia Bulldogs.
On the other side, Jon Sumrall and the Green Wave have a 16 percent chance of pulling off the upset with the program eyeing an opportunity to move on to the next round in the Sugar Bowl at the Caesars SuperDome in New Orleans (La.)
ESPN currently believes that the Ole Miss Rebels and Georgia Bulldogs will square off in the Sugar Bowl at the Caesars SuperDome.
First-Round Games:
No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Oregon | 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 20
No. 11 Tulane at No. 6 Ole Miss | 3:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, Dec. 20 on TNT, truTV, HBO Max
No. 10 Miami at No. 7 Texas A&M | Noon ET, Saturday, Dec. 20
No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 Oklahoma | 8 p.m. ET, Friday, Dec. 19
Quarterfinals:
No. 1 Indiana vs. winner of No. 8 Oklahoma/No. 9 Alabama | 4 p.m. ET, Thursday, Jan. 1
No. 2 Ohio State vs. winner of No. 7 Texas A&M vs. No. 10 Miami | 7:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Dec. 31
No. 3 Georgia vs. winner of No. 6 Ole Miss/No. 11 Tulane | 8 p.m. ET, Thursday, Jan. 1
No. 4 Texas Tech vs. winner of No. 5 Oregon/No. 12 James Madison | Noon ET, Thursday, Jan. 1
More Ole Miss News:
Lane Kiffin Reacts to New Offensive Coordinator Being Hired By Ole Miss Football
Ole Miss Football QB Trinidad Chambliss Wins Major Award Amid Breakout Season
ESPN Predicts Outcome of Ole Miss Football vs. Tulane Green Wave in CFP Showdown
Join the Community:
Follow Zack Nagy on Twitter: @znagy20 and Ole Miss Rebels On SI: @OleMissOnSI for all coverage surrounding the Ole Miss program.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Georgia center Somto Cyril goes up for a dunk during the first half against Cincinnati in their NCAA basketball game in the Holiday Hoopsgiving at State Farm Arena, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Atlanta. Georgia won 84-65. (Jason Getz/AJC)
By Olivia Sayer
6 hours ago
When Georgia basketball took the court Saturday afternoon at State Farm Arena, it resembled a team who had not faced another opponent in 11 days.
The Bulldogs came out lackadaisical with more turnovers than successful shots in the game’s first two minutes and faced an 11-point deficit before halftime.
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