North Carolina governor vetoes fairness in women’s sports, blaming ‘culture wars’

On Wednesday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which would prohibit transgender athletes from joining women’s sports teams. It was a profoundly unwise veto.

Cooper defended his decision in a statement: “We don’t need politicians inflaming their political culture wars by making broad, uninformed decisions about an extremely small number of vulnerable children that are already handled by a robust system that relies on parents, schools and sports organizations. Republican governors in other states have vetoed similar bills because they hurt their states’ reputation and economy and because they are neither fair nor needed.”

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Uninformed? There’s plenty of evidence, including in North Carolina, that allowing transgender people in women’s spaces and sports is dangerous. It is true that by playing a sport you risk getting hurt. But unfair injuries and trauma can be avoided with rational legislation.

In claiming that the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act is a mere culture-war bill, Cooper is dismissing his own state’s reality.

Just last fall, a North Carolina teenager suffered serious head and neck injuries from a spike by a transgender athlete at her high school volleyball game. According to local news outlet WLOS, she is still struggling with partial paralysis on the right side of her body, loss of vision, and constant headaches, besides mental symptoms such as depression and anxiety.

Young athletes in other states are also facing unfairness because of transgender participation in women’s sports. Tom Joyce of the Washington Examiner previously reported three examples of transgender athletic advantage this school year, in California, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Not to mention other incidents at higher levels, with athletes such as Lia Thomas flashing his teammates and dominating female competitors in swim races.

Leftist politicians and LGBT activists used the same argument about fringe “culture wars” in their protest against biological bathroom bills for schools, which would prohibit transgender people from going into bathrooms that do not align with their biological sex. They denied the dangers that Republican politicians accurately predicted.

The Human Rights Campaign, for example, posted a page under their “Resources” section called “Get the Facts about Transgender & Non-Binary Athletes.” Referring to LGBT-related legislation, they wrote, “Transgender and non-binary people have been the target of many of these attacks, especially since the 2015 state legislative sessions. Then, so-called bathroom bills were a major focus and politicians lied about threats to women and girls’ safety that never materialized.”

This could not be farther from the truth. Young girls in Virginia, Oklahoma, California, Wisconsin, and New Mexico have been assaulted, raped, and traumatized by their transgender peers. Some of them have been ignored by their school districts. All because Democratic politicians refused to protect their privacy out of fear of making transgender students feel excluded.

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Cooper cannot diminish the current situation to a “culture war.” Children have the right to play sports without having to worry about a ridiculous biological advantage. They should be able to use locker rooms and bathrooms without fear. To say so isn’t warlike; it’s just common sense and common decency. Cooper is now on the wrong side of both.

Briana Oser is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.