Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has declined to tell The Daily Signal whether he will sign or veto a measure to protect women from unfair competition in sports, after the bill passed the state Senate in a bipartisan vote Tuesday.
The Daily Signal reached out multiple times and connected twice with a staffer, but Shapiro’s office did not provide a response by the deadline. Shapiro has previously opposed a substantially similar bill.
“This bill is nothing more than cruel, designed to discriminate against transgender youth who just want to play sports like their peers,” he wrote in 2021. “Our [Gov. Tom Wolf] will veto this & defend our LGBTQ+ community — but *this* is the GOP’s vision for Pennsylvania.”
Shapiro may be declining to take a stand on the issue due to presidential ambitions.
Senate Bill 9, the Save Women’s Sports Act, passed the Senate, 32-18, on Tuesday. Five Democrats joined 27 Republicans in voting for the bill. (Republicans enjoy a slight majority, 27-to-23.)
It remains unclear if the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (where Democrats have a one-seat majority, 102-to-101) will take up the bill.
Lisa Boscola, one of the Senate Democrats who voted for the bill, said she supports inclusion but emphasized that men enjoy biological advantages over women in many sports.
“I do empathize with individuals in transition, a person trying to come to grips with who they are,” she declared in a speech on the Senate floor. “A decision like this cannot be easy, and it can be for some isolating and scary. Sports is an opportunity to be included, but it must be done correctly, safely, and fairly.”
“Separating biological males and females for sports, especially after puberty, is necessary for fairness,” Boscola said. “Let’s talk reality. We divide boys and girls for sports by biology starting around the teenage years because the process of growing into men and women has a clear impact on athleticism.”
She mentioned Lia Thomas, a male swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who competed in men’s events before identifying as female and joining the women’s team.
“Looking at rankings of Lia Thomas, the swimmer at UPenn, you also gain some perspective of the difference of physical ability,” Boscola noted. “In the 2018-2019 season she was, when competing in the men’s team, ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. In the 2021-2022 season, those ranks are now, when competing in the women’s team, fifth in the 200 freestyle, first in the 500 freestyle, and eighth in the 1650 freestyle and that was with two years of hormone treatments.”
It seems Pennsylvania Democrats are operating on the presumption that Shapiro will veto the bill.
“You know this bill is not going anywhere in the House,” Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “You know it’s not going anywhere to the governor’s desk. This is simply being done for political reasons to be able to create a divisive chamber here.”
Costa called the bill discriminatory, “unnecessary, unwarranted, and unconstitutional in my mind.”
When the bill first passed out of the Senate committee in March, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Matt Bradford dismissed it as political theater.
“In the House, we remain focused on building good schools for every kid, cutting costs for working families and making sure everyone can see a doctor,” Elizabeth Rementer said at the time.
Rementer did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on whether the House will take up the bill.
