Georgia
Georgia Senate study panel considers restrictions on trans women’s college sports participation • Georgia Recorder
A Georgia Senate study committee that bills itself as tasked with protecting women’s sports met Thursday for the last time before it is set to release recommendations before next year’s legislative session, and transgender Georgians are bracing themselves.
At Thursday’s hearing, transgender women and allies argued that vanishingly few transgender women participate in school sports, and those who do are largely not at the top of the competitive heap. Many said the national focus is making life difficult.
“It’s so hard to face this kind of opposition,” said Aaron Baker, a transgender woman and activist. “It’s so hard to be at a hearing like this and hear the language. It’s so hard for you to hear people describe me as a biological man because it’s not
true. I am hormonally female, I’m phenotypically female, I’m psychologically female, and that is a gross oversimplification of who I am and my identity, and it hurts.”
Committee Chair Greg Dolezal, a Cumming Republican, told members he would spend the next week or so reviewing testimony from the committee’s three hearings and plans to announce the date for presenting recommendations shortly after. Study committee recommendations could take the form of proposed legislation in time for the 2025 General Assembly, which is set to begin Jan. 13.
Dolezal indicated he is interested in considering regulations for college sports. A previous hearing featured testimony from cisgender women college swimmers who said they were placed at an unfair disadvantage when they had to compete against a transgender woman at a competition at Georgia Tech.
“A few years ago, I believe it was three years ago, the General Assembly passed a bill essentially prescribing the control to make decisions around transgender participation in sports to the Georgia High School Association, they passed a resolution that stated that participation in sports, high school sports, in the state of Georgia was based on the sex prescribed on a birth certificate. The law is currently silent on the collegiate competition level. So right now, we just have a law as it relates to high school associations,” he said.
Other Republicans on the committee suggested they would like to see legislation in K-12 schools, especially surrounding restrooms and locker rooms.
“As a father of two young daughters, we’ve got to protect women,” said Gwinnett Republican Sen. Clint Dixon. “We’ve got to protect their sports, we’ve got to protect them in changing rooms from what we heard from many of those athletes who testified, four or five of them who testified in the first committee hearing, having to change, which took 20, 30 minutes at a time, in front of a transgender female, but still had the genitalia of a male, which was horrific for them to witness that, some of them ended up changing in a storage closet, some of them waited until that athlete left the room, having to miss some of their competition, and that’s just at the college level, we’re not even talking about minors in K-12.”
Some activists indicated that they would oppose any kind of restriction on transgender participation, while speakers like Lambda Legal attorney Sasha Buchert urged the lawmakers to take a nuanced approach over a blanket ban, which could mean a committee including medical experts to consider safety or competitive concerns on a case-by-case basis. Others said such decisions should be left to athletic associations and leagues rather than politicians or political appointees.
“Sports are already managed by expert organizations like the NCAA, the International Olympics Committee, and professional leagues,” said Delfina Booth, a former Georgia Tech student and high school athlete who said she has lost transgender friends to police violence and suicide.
“These governing bodies have developed policies over decades that analyze fairness based on unique needs of each sport,” she added. “Contact sports have different rules than non-contact sports, children’s sports focus more on teamwork and development than adult sports, et cetera. These nuances cannot be addressed through broad government legislation. Additionally, decisions about athletic ability involve multiple complex factors, including the signs of physical development and the specific demands of each sport. These aren’t matters that lend themselves directly or easily to blanket rules.”
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After months of campaigning, the 2026 primary elections in Georgia are on Tuesday, with hundreds of contests for statewide and local office taking place across the Peach State.
Voters in every precinct will have a distinct ballot, depending on what races are in play where they live.
With the number of candidates and hotly contested races up for grabs this year, many voters have said the primary ballot is one of the longest they’ve seen.
How to tell which races will be on your local Georgia ballot
So how do you know what races will be on your ballot before you head to your local polling place? It’s easier than you might think.
One way is to use the Georgia Secretary of State’s My Voter Page. Once logged in with your name, county, and date of birth, you can click a link to see your sample ballot and update your voter information. You can also see where you can cast your vote and your voter registration info.
You can also check your county election department, which will have links to see the Democratic, nonpartisan, and Republican sample ballots.
Statewide races will be on every voter’s ballot, like the primaries for governor, lieutenant governor, and U.S. senator. Most other races are dependent on the county or legislative district.
The different races included in the Georgia primary election
- U.S. Senate
- U.S. House of Representatives
- Governor
- Lieutenant Governor
- Secretary of State
- Attorney General
- Commissioner of Agriculture
- Commissioner of Insurance
- State School Superintendent
- Commissioner of Labor
- Public Service Commissioner District 3 and 5
- State Senate
- State House
- Countywide officers
- Georgia Supreme Court (two seats)
- State and county courts
Georgia U.S. Senate primaries
Incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is running unopposed and will face one of five challengers aiming to bring the seat back into Republican hands: Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter, Rep. Mike Collins, John F. Coyne III, Derek Dooley, and Jonathan “Jon” McColumn.
Georgia Congressional primaries
All 14 of Georgia’s U.S. House districts are on the ballot this year. Here are some of the metro Atlanta races CBS News Atlanta will be watching closely.
Primaries for Georgia governor
Primaries for Georgia lieutenant governor
- Democratic primary for Georgia lieutenant governor
- Republican primary for Georgia lieutenant governor
Primaries for Georgia secretary of state
- Democratic primary for Georgia secretary of state
- Republican primary for Georgia secretary of state
Primaries for Georgia attorney general
- Democratic primary for Georgia attorney general
- Republican primary for Georgia attorney general
Other statewide primaries in Georgia
Here are some other contested statewide primaries we are watching:
- Democratic primary for Georgia insurance commissioner
- Democratic primary for Georgia agriculture commissioner
- Republican primary for Georgia state school superintendent
- Democratic primary for Georgia state school superintendent
- Democratic primary for Georgia labor commissioner
- Republican primary for Georgia Public Service commissioner Districts 3 and 5
- Democratic primary for Georgia Public Service commissioner Districts 3 and 5
Georgia State Senate and State House primaries
All 56 of the Georgia State Senate districts and all 180 seats of the Georgia State House of Representatives are up for election in 2026.
Primaries for Georgia courts
Primaries for both statewide and county courts are on the ballot this year. These elections are nonpartisan and all candidates will appear on both ballots
- Three Georgia Supreme Court judges
- Five Court of Appeals judges
- County superior court judges
- State court judges
Political party ballot questions
Both the Georgia Republican and Democratic parties include ballot questions in their primary elections. The questions are non-binding, but advise the parties on what to include in their platforms. This year, the Republicans have eight questions and the Democrats have two.
As an example, Question 1 on the Republican ballot asks: “Should Georgia enact the strongest election integrity measures possible, which may include hand marked paper ballots, fines for counties that refuse to maintain current voter rolls, and restrictions on no-excuse absentee voting to restore trust in elections?”
Question 1 on the Democratic ballot asks: “Should the State of Georgia raise the sales tax on everyday items like clothing, food, and school supplies to pay for an income tax cut that would make millionaires and billionaires richer?”
Voters mark yes or no on each question.
As temperatures rise across Georgia, cooling costs are also expected to climb this summer. The Georgia Public Service Commission is set to hear one of Georgia Power’s proposed agreements aimed at saving customers money on their power bills.
Georgia Power says its proposed agreements could save the typical customer about $4 a month if approved by the commission.
The proposals involve two separate cases before the PSC. One focuses on fuel costs used to operate power plants, while the second deals with storm recovery costs tied to Hurricane Helene.
Georgia Power and the PSC’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff recently reached agreements in both cases. If approved, the company says the typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month could save about $4.04 per month or nearly $50 per year beginning in June.
The proposal comes as a new national report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association and the Center for Energy Poverty and Climate projects cooling costs could rise about 8.5% nationwide this year. The report says hotter temperatures and increased energy demand are helping drive costs higher.
Reliable Heating and Air said it is already seeing an increase in service calls across metro Atlanta as more people start using their air conditioning systems.
HVAC experts said homeowners should watch for warning signs, including strange noises, weak airflow, homes cooling slowly or higher-than-normal power bills.
“Biggest mistake they make is not getting a system maintenance,” said Joshua Kelly with Reliable Heating and Air. “A lot of people feel like, ‘Oh no, I don’t have to get maintenance,’ but you most definitely do.”
Experts recommend changing air filters regularly, scheduling maintenance checks, keeping thermostats between 74 and 77 degrees on hot days and addressing airflow problems early.
Resources for Georgia families needing help with cooling costs:
- Georgia LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) — Helps eligible low-income households pay heating and cooling bills and may assist during energy emergencies.
- United Way 211 — Connects families with local resources, including utility assistance programs, emergency financial help and community services.
- Partnership for Community Action — Offers utility assistance, energy support programs and other services for eligible families in metro Atlanta.
- Local Community Action Agencies — Many agencies across Georgia provide emergency utility assistance, payment support and additional family resources during extreme heat and high energy demand periods.
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