Lt. Governor Burt Jones Supports Protecting Women’s Sports

Lt. Governor Burt Jones Supports Protecting Women's Sports

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, December 17, 2024

ATLANTA | Today, Lt. Governor Burt Jones issued a statement in support of the Georgia Senate Special Committee on the Protection of Women's Sports final recommendations for the 2025 Legislative Session.

"I want to thank Chairman Greg Dolezal for his leadership on this important committee and I appreciate all of the hard work from the entire membership. The Senate continues to lead on efforts to protect women's sports and all of the work they put into competing and becoming elite athletes. Ensuring that in the future, females participating in Georgia sports are protected at any level will be a priority during the 2025 session."

The Georgia Senate Special Committee on the Protection of Women's Sports final report was adopted on Friday, December 13, 2024. The committee voted on the following recommendations:

Repeal the delegation of authority by the General Assembly to high school athletic associations to regulate participation in women's sports. This is an issue that should be decided by the people's elected representatives.

Provide protections in statute for the protection of women's sports in Georgia at the secondary and collegiate levels for public high schools, colleges, and universities and private institutions that compete with and against public schools in sports. This should include rules providing that, based on the athlete's biological sex at birth, men cannot compete in sports designated for women.

Require schools that host or sponsor sporting events to provide separate changing and dressing facilities for male and female athletes based on their biological sex at birth.

Provide enforcement options for rules regarding women's sports participation and separate changing and dressing facilities, including grievance proceedings and civil remedies for aggrieved participants and the authority to withhold state funding from schools who fail or refuse to abide by these rules.

Adopt other rules, as necessary, to ensure that the regulation of sports is based on promoting and preserving competitive fairness and protecting student safety and that female student athletes have fair opportunities to demonstrate their strength, skills, and athletic abilities and to obtain recognition, accolades, college scholarships, and the numerous other long-term benefits that result from participating and competing in sports.

Committee meetings were livestreamed and the links to the archived videos can be found here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/9027934?autoplay=1