Texas Governor Greg Abbott is in the camp of elected officials fighting against transgender athletes competing in collegiate sports. The Texas Legislature is in session and Abbott pledged it will soon pass a law requiring transgender college athletes to compete according to the sex assigned at birth.

He delivered that pledge Saturday as he spoke to Scott Walker during a gathering of Young America’s Foundation in Dallas.

“This next session, we will pass a law prohibiting biological men to compete against women in college sports [sic],” Abbott told host Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin, according to a recording of their discussion.

Two Texas Republican lawmakers have filed bills restricting transgender collegiate athletes this session. Rep. Valoree Swanson of Spring and Sen. Mayes Middleton of Galveston have filed bills so far. With the governor’s support, it is very likely that such a bill will pass among the thousands of bill that are typically filed each session. There is already a restriction on transgender athletes in high school sports that Abbott signed into law in 2021.

It’s not a surprise that Abbott is extending the ban to collegiate sports. Conservative leaders across the country have led the charge to stop transgender women from canceling biological women in sports. The NCAA updated its policy in a semi-woke way last year by supporting transgender athletes competing according to the gender with which they identify but they have to pass certain hormone level benchmarks to qualify. The NCAA didn’t take a principled stand and insisted that athletes compete fairly. Instead, it rode the fence and allows transgender women to compete if their hormone levels pass the test. That feels very much like Russian women who are found to have high levels of testosterone from pre-competition doping. It’s unfair to biological women.

The bills restricting transgender college athletes could open the door to a political fight. The National Collegiate Athletic Association Board of Governors, which oversees the main governing body for college sports, has long prioritized the inclusion of transgender student athletes in its competitions. At least 20 Texas universities compete in NCAA competitions, including the University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University and Texas A&M University.

In 2021, the NCAA board announced it will only hold championships in which transgender student athletes can participate without discrimination.

The NCAA’s participation policies currently require transgender student athletes to document sport-specific testosterone levels beginning four weeks before their sports’ championship selections.

Playing collegiate or high school sports isn’t a right. It’s a privilege. Student-athletes work hard and are often rewarded with college scholarships. For some, it is their ticket to getting a college education. If transgender women are to compete, they should be in a category of their own. Transgender people are a very small portion of the population and to bend to their wishes at the expense of biological girls and women who have sacrificed and worked for years to be able to compete at the college level is just not right, as Governor Abbott said.

One advocate for trans athletes makes the argument that trans people “already encounter so many obstacles.”

Ricardo Martinez, who leads the LGBTQ rights group Equality Texas, said Abbott’s comments “openly alienate trans people who already encounter so many obstacles.”

“Sports are an important part of the lives of many young people. They teach young people about teamwork, persistence and sportsmanship,” he said. “This type of legislation would abandon trans athletes and leave them without a way to express themselves in sports.”

Trans people are not owed the ability to play college sports. Not to put too harsh of a point on it but the trans lifestyle is hard anyway. Governor Abbott spoke about professional surfer Bethany Hamilton and he mentioned the case of Lia Thomas, without mentioning her by name, a Texas-born transgender woman swimmer.

The governor’s pledge for this session, first reported by The Texas Tribune, came at the end of extensive remarks he made about the current state of play regarding transgender athletes. He mentioned professional surfer Bethany Hamilton’s recent decision not to compete against transgender women after the World Surf League changed its policies to open up competition and, without naming her, also brought up Texas-born swimmer Lia Thomas.

“That’s just not right,” Abbott said of Hamilton. He later added: “Women and only women should be competing in college or high school sports, as well as representing the United States of America in our Olympic sports.”

Why should Hamilton have to leave the sport she has devoted her life to instead of trans athletes like Lia Thomas being told no to competing as a woman?