HB 104: Equal Athletic Opportunities Act; enact

Georgia already has a law requiring equal athletic opportunities for boys and girls in public schools (O.C.G.A. § 20-2-315). This bill renames that law the 'Equal Athletic Opportunities Act' and replaces its use of 'gender' with 'sex,' which it defines strictly as a person's biological sex at birth, determined by the sex listed on the original birth certificate. The bill requires every interscholastic team run by a public school, local school system, or a private school competing against them to be labeled male, female, or coed. It bars males from playing on female-designated teams and females from playing on male-designated teams, while still allowing anyone to join coed teams. It keeps existing rules on contact sports, equal funding factors, locker room facilities, complaint procedures, and state enforcement steps including possible loss of state funds for noncompliance. It also removes a provision letting the state high school athletic association adopt its own policy on this issue, since the new statewide rule would apply instead.

• Renames and rewrites O.C.G.A. § 20-2-315 as the 'Equal Athletic Opportunities Act,' replacing references to 'gender' with a narrowly defined term 'sex' based on biological sex at birth.
• Requires every school sports team to be designated as male, female, or coed, and bars male students from female-designated teams and female students from male-designated teams.
• Expands the rule beyond local school systems to also directly cover public schools and participating private schools that compete against Georgia public schools.
• Removes language letting the state's high school athletic association independently adopt a policy restricting participation by students whose gender differs from a team's designation, since the bill now sets that rule directly.
• Keeps existing requirements for equal funding factors, separate facilities, complaint and appeal procedures, and state enforcement penalties, including withholding of state funds for noncompliance.

Public school students and student athletes, transgender students specifically, local school systems and their designated compliance officers, participating private schools that compete against Georgia public schools, the Georgia High School Association, and the Department of Education, which oversees complaints and can withhold funding for noncompliance.

The bill would bar transgender students from competing on teams that match their gender identity, instead sorting all school athletics strictly by sex at birth. Schools found in violation could face state investigations, corrective plans, and eventually loss of state funding under the existing enforcement process.

• Section 1 rewrites O.C.G.A. § 20-2-315, defining 'sex' as biological sex determined by reproductive biology and genetics at birth, verified by the original birth certificate near the time of birth.
• New subsection (c)(e) requires every interscholastic team to be designated male, female, or coed, and bars participation across sex-designated teams while allowing anyone on coed teams.
• Contact sport exception is retained and expanded to explicitly list basketball, football, ice hockey, lacrosse, martial arts, soccer, and rugby alongside boxing and wrestling.
• Existing equal-opportunity factors (equipment, scheduling, travel, coaching, facilities, funding) are retained but now use 'sex' instead of 'gender.'
• Existing complaint, appeal, and state enforcement process is retained, including State Board of Education corrective plans and potential withholding of state funds under O.C.G.A. § 20-2-186.
• Section 2 amends O.C.G.A. § 20-2-316 to remove the athletic association's independent authority to adopt its own transgender participation policy, since the statewide rule now governs directly.

1. 2025-01-28House Second Readers (House)
2. 2025-01-27House First Readers (House)
3. 2025-01-17House Hopper (House)

• Brent Cox (R, HD-028)Primary sponsor
• Rick Jasperse (R, HD-011)
• Carter Barrett (R, HD-024)
• Charles Cannon (R, HD-172)
• Chris Erwin (R, HD-032)
• Mitchell Horner (R, HD-003)

• transgender athletes
• school sports
• Title IX compliance
• high school athletics
• gender and sports policy