Protesters stand outside a House Education Committee, which heard testimony on a bill to bar transgender women from serving on female sports teams, on Jan. 14, 2020 Ethan DeWitt

Members of the House Education Committee met Tuesday to make recommendations on a number of bills, including a recommendation that a bill to bar transgender students from female sports in school be banned, Feb 25, 2020. Ethan DeWitt—Ethan DeWitt

A bill that would bar transgender athletes from participating on girls’ sports teams was dealt a setback Wednesday, after a panel of lawmakers recommended it be killed.

House Bill 1251 would require that students interested in participating in female athletic teams be “cisgendered,” meaning that their identified gender corresponds to their sex at birth. If called into question, the student would need to prove their sex by producing a doctor’s note with testosterone checks and a chromosome analysis, according to the bill.

The bill, which would apply to, was recommended “inexpedient to legislate” by the House education committee, 13-7 on Wednesday. It’ll be taken up by the full House at a later date.

According to its Republican sponsors, the legislation is necessary to protect fairness. Female trans athletes have physical advantages over cisgendered female athletes and could give an unfair advantage to teams and displace cisgender athletes from competing, backers of the bill have argued.

But Democrats and trans activists have blasted the bill as discrimination against trans athletes that they said would isolate them. Passing it would set New Hampshire back after the gains made the last two years to make gender identity a protected class in the state’s nondiscrimination laws, they argued.

On Wednesday, debate in the House education committee fell along similar lines. Republicans said passing the bill would preserve opportunities for student athletes. Democrats said it would tear away opportunities from students who already can feel marginalized.

“I have to tell you, I’m really outraged by this bill,” said Rep. Rosemarie Rung, a Merrimack Democrat. “I read where in primary school, a fourth grader who may identify as a female would have to be subject to internal and external reproductive anatomy. An analysis of the individual’s chromosomes.”

Trans students may already participate on female sports teams in many New Hampshire schools. State statute is silent on the practice, but the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association has issued guidelines to school districts urging participation to be allowed.

But Rep. Glen Cordelli, a Tuftonboro Republican, argued that allowing trans women onto sports teams would put the state at odds with Title IX, the federal statute that gave women the right to compete in sports with an equal opportunity to men. By allowing trans female students who have not fully transitioned onto the team, New Hampshire is diluting those experiences, Cordelli said.

“We are facing an assault on Title IX,” he said. “Discrimination, if it’s anywhere, it would be against women athletes.”

And others said that transgender females had bone structure and testosterone levels that could give them a leg up. “All those things are so that you have like bodies competing against like bodies,” said Rep. Alicia Lekas, a Hudson Republican. “And that’s what this is about.”

Democrats were equally as forceful in their support of what they said was trans students’ right to join the team whose gender they identified with.

“This really is a wolf’s in sheep’s clothing,” said Rep. Stephen Woodcock, a Conway Democrat. “This is about not allowing transgender youth to participate.”

Two lawmakers invoked their own children as examples. Rep. Rick Ladd, a Haverhill Republican, pointed to his granddaughter, who competes in track and field in college and who he said places high. “I understand the difficulties that athletes of that caliber encounter,” he said. “We are looking at – in the direction that we’re going – the demise of Title IX. We’re not going to see girls’ sports teams at the collegiate level in the future. It’s going to be a mixture of.”

But Rep. Tamara Le said her middle school-aged daughters didn’t mind. She asked the two of them – both athletes – how they’d feel about a trans athlete competing against them, she recalled the committee.

“Both of my daughters said to me ‘You know, I think it would make us better players,’ ” the North Hampton Democrat said. “I think it’s more inclusive. I think it would not discriminate against our friends. The young women of this state understand what’s at stake. They understand when their friends are marginalized, are targeted, and they’re just not going to put up with it.”

After the vote, a group of trans activists exhaled out in the hallway.

“I’m relieved,” said James Costigan, a trans man who had stood in the back, nodding forcefully at the arguments he agreed with.

But Takuma Okada, a trans woman, said hearing from lawmakers in support of the bill had been difficult.

“It’s hard to listen to transphobia as a trans person and have that come from your state legislators and have us sit there and listen to that,” she said.

Neither Okada nor Costigan were avid athletes in high school, they said – but both said they doubt if they were that it would have made a difference. Most students in school today have become accustomed and accepting of trans classmates, they said.

“They are so much better about language than even I am,” said Okada. “They are so hip and quick and with it. To them a trans woman is a woman. So there doesn’t seem to be any question there.”