Free Republic

PIERRE, S.D. -- South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Monday killed a bill that would have banned transgender women and girls from female sports, then later issued weaker executive orders that include restrictions but which conservatives decried as political face-saving. Lawmakers in more than 20 states have introduced similar bans this year, with Republican governors in three states -- Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi -- signing them into law. A federal court blocked a similar law in Idaho last year. Noem's partial veto of the bill riled GOP lawmakers and tarnished the Republican governor's status among social conservatives. Shortly after the...

Some weeks ago, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced that he would veto a bill making its way through the legislature that would bar males from competing against females in womens’ sports. The bill itself is hardly a controversial idea in Republican (and independent) circles, and Utah is one of the reddest states in the nation. Cox is your consummate establishmentarian politician, though, so it was no surprise when he responded (per Fox News) by claiming it was the “right” thing to make sure girls could get dominated by boys in sports. After all, this is the same guy who called...

In May, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem became the first candidate nationwide to promise to combat action civics and the un-American ideology of critical race theory by signing the 1776 Pledge to Save Our Schools, a pledge drafted by a new patriotic education nonprofit. “Teaching our children & grandchildren to hate their own country & pitting them against one another on the basis of race or sex is shameful & must be stopped. I’m proud to be the 1st candidate in America to sign ‘The 1776 Pledge to Save Our Schools,’” Noem wrote on Twitter. Noem’s embrace of the...

Alanna Smith’s dedication to her sport is profound. Just listening to the elite high school track star explain her training schedule is exhausting. Yet no matter how hard she trains, if she has to compete against biological males, she stands no chance of winning. “There is simply a biological advantage that males have over females,” explained the daughter of baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Lee Smith. “Here is a perfect example," Smith told me. "I have a twin brother who is an athlete but does not run competitively for his sports. We raced against each other recently, and he beat...