On the heels of President Trump’s executive order barring trans women and girls from competing in women's and girls’ sports, a panel of New Mexico lawmakers Thursday tabled a bill that would have enshrined a similar exclusion in state law. That move effectively defeated the legislation. Trans advocates say the proposal comes from out-of-state parties and has no place in New Mexico.
Republican lawmakers have undertaken similar efforts in four of the last five New Mexico legislative sessions. None of those got through a single committee either.
Adrien Lawyer, co-founder and director of education at the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, said passing the proposal was not its sponsors’ point.
“This is much more of a political, symbolic act,” he said. “It’s meant to show solidarity with a central sort of anti-trans plank at that political level all over the country.”
National strategy
Keeping transgender women out of women's sports has become an increasingly popular Republican policy nationwide since 2020. Half of states now have laws banning trans students from playing youth sports, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
Critics of the New Mexico legislation, House Bill 185, said it is not a homegrown effort. Both experts called to speak in its favor were out of state representatives for Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative policy organization advocating for similar legislation across the country. There is also no data showing how many, if any, trans women and girls in New Mexico actually play competitive sports.
Bill sponsor Andrea Reeb (R-Clovis) addressed the pushback at a news conference ahead of the hearing in the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, citing a UNM volleyball game in October.
“One of the volleyball players on San Jose State was trans. So, yes, it is happening in New Mexico,” she told reporters. “Can I say that we have any trans [people] on teams? I can’t answer that.”
The New Mexico Activities Association declined to say whether it is aware of any trans athletes competing in middle or high school sports. The University of New Mexico did not respond to a request for comment, while a spokesperson for New Mexico State University confirmed that “there are not currently, nor have there been” trans students on its athletic teams.
NCAA President Charlie Baker has said there are fewer than 10 trans athletes playing collegiately nationwide. Lawyer said the Transgender Resource Center is also unaware of any trans student athletes in New Mexico. He said that, while there are of course trans kids who play sports across the U.S., there is likely very few since the trans population is so small to begin with.
“So that to me, more than anything else, makes these bills look like a solution in search of a problem,” he said.
Overriding existing law
While New Mexico’s bill does not actually use the term “transgender,” it targets the population by defining an athlete’s sex as, “Biological sex of either male or female as designated at birth.” It relies on a participant's birth certificate to establish their eligibility for girls’ and womens’ sports, but only if the sex listed, “Was designated at or near the time of the participant's birth.”
However, New Mexico began allowing people to amend the sex on their birth certificates in 2019. Bill sponsors, including Rep. Rebecca Dow (R-Truth or Consequences), were unable to answer how those assessing eligibility would go about overriding that law and a legally binding record.
“What would override it is their biological birth, the sex assigned at biological birth, biological sex at birth,” she said, struggling to find her words.
The New Mexico Activities Association allows students to compete as the gender listed on an amended birth certificate. The NCAA changed its policy last week to limit women's sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That aligns with the guidelines in Trump’s order, which allows federal funds to be withheld from schools that do not follow it.
Co-sponsor Rep. Rod Montoya (R-San Juan) told the committee that New Mexico schools could suffer if state law does not align with the new national policies.
“The problem with that is the federal government will withhold funds,” he said. “So, I think this is important for us to protect our institutions and protect those who are running those institutions.”
Athletic advantage?
Montoya also argued the proposal aims to protect cisgender women and girls from trans women and girls.
“It’s, in many instances, dangerous for them to compete against bigger, stronger, faster opposition,” he said.
A legislative analysis of the bill cites various studies on the athletic advantage of someone assigned male at birth, with several noting hormone therapy can diminish that advantage over time. It notes, however, that “physical advantages also exist among players designated female at birth.”
Pressed in committee to back up his stance with data, Montoya instead referenced the story of expert witness Payton Mcnabb, a former North Carolina high school volleyball player who was injured while playing against a trans girl.
“And so, when you hear that ‘studies don’t show,’ we don’t need studies to show,” he told the panel. “We have people who have been harmed.”
Rep. Liz Thomson (D-Bernalillo), citing cis women athletes who vary in size and strength and are still permitted to compete against each other, pushed back.
“The plural of anecdote is not data,” she said. “Because we hear stories doesn’t mean that’s how the world is. Those are stories.”
A tense exchange
The hearing ended abruptly after a tense exchange between Rep. Stefani Lord (R-Sandia Park) and Chair Rep. Joanne Ferrary (D-Doña Ana) over the chair’s insistence that Lord stick to asking questions while allowing a Democratic member to make a statement on the bill. Following the back-and-forth where the lawmakers spoke over each other, another motioned to table the legislation.
The committee approved the motion to set the bill down, and likely not pick it back up, on a 4-2 party-line vote with Democrats in favor.
