Governor of RN vetoes PL that bans men from female competition

The governor of Rio Grande do Norte, Fátima Bezerra (PT), vetoed Bill No. 162/2022 in full, which establishes that “biological sex will be the only criterion defining the gender of athletes in official sporting competitions in the state, leaving Transsexuals are prohibited from working in teams that correspond to the opposite sex to that of birth.”

Authored by deputy Coronel Azevedo (PL), the proposal was approved by the Legislative Assembly on December 12, 2023 and provided for a fine for federations, entities or clubs that failed to comply with the rule. The value of the fine was up to 10 minimum wages per athlete.

The governor’s veto was published in the state’s Official Gazette on January 13, 2024.

In her justification, the governor claimed that the proposal presented “constitutionality defects” and “offense to the public interest”. According to the text of the veto, it is up to the Union, States and Federal District to legislate on the topic addressed in the project.

“As reported in the press, ‘the IOC (International Olympic Committee) adopted a position for the first time on the participation of transgender athletes before the 2004 Athens Olympics.’ At that time, the organization required surgery for transgender athletes to compete with their gender identity. In 2015, when updating those guidelines, the IOC changed the rules and allowed trans men to compete without any restrictions. Trans women, however, even though they no longer needed to undergo genital reconstruction surgery, they had to meet other requirements. As a way of understanding that equivalence in testosterone levels would bring balance to cisgender athletes (who identify with the gender assigned biologically at birth), it was established that the testosterone level of trans women should, for 12 months before the first competition and during the sporting career, be below 10 nanomoles per liter of blood, at risk of punishment if the rule was broken. In November last year (2021), to lead a commitment to respect human rights and promote gender equality and inclusion, the IOC allowed each sports federation to accept or not the proposed guidelines. The requirement for hormonal levels for sports continues, but, for the Committee, it does not need to be a single rule, with each body that regulates the sports category being responsible for establishing its own requirements. However, the entity pointed out ten guidelines to be followed to establish new, more inclusive rules, including the right to privacy, non-discrimination based on identity and gender variations, in addition to the non-presumption of advantage, and any approach must be based on in scientific evidence”says an excerpt from the justification for the veto.

“It is also important to highlight that the State of Rio Grande do Norte, by providing for this matter in a restrictive manner, isolates itself from the rest of the country and even from the world, since the participation of teams with transgender athletes would be prohibited from participating in competitions in the Potiguar territory”, said the governor in another excerpt.

When presenting the project in 2022, deputy Coronel Azevedo (PL-RN) pointed to the protection of women as the objective of the proposal.

“The proposal aims to protect women, prohibiting the participation of biologically male athletes in sports competitions aimed at females. We have even seen boxing fights on some occasions, where competitors who were born male end the fight in a few seconds, bringing risks to the competitors. It is a natural doping, since the bodies of those born male have much more testosterone”, said the parliamentarian at the time.

When vetoing the proposal, the governor also recalled that Bill 4,591/23 is already being processed in the Chamber of Deputies, which “establishes biological sex as the only criterion for defining the gender of competitors in official sporting matches throughout the national territory” .