The controversial ban on transgender athletes participating in youth and college sports passed by the Florida state house last week will likely die in the state senate as elected officials react to the outcry against the legislation, Politico reports.
“Ding dong the witch is dead,” Democratic state senator Janet Cruz of Tampa tweeted. “Rip transgender bill.” She added a gif of actor Leonardo DiCaprio applauding enthusiastically.
The bill would have limited participants in K-12 and college athletics to only compete on teams based on their “biological” gender. The NCAA threatened to pull all tournaments from Florida if the bill passed, saying that its “dignity and respect” for all athletes would be violated by honoring the ban.
Republicans claimed that the law was required to maintain the integrity of sports, particularly women’s sports, which they claim would have been inundated with boys and men competing in women’s sports just to win.
However, after the vocal outcry from disparate parties such as the NCAA, LGBTQ groups and civil rights groups, Florida Republicans began to realize the possible repercussions of legislating their bigotry. They wanted to quickly move on.
“Right now, my primary focus as Appropriations Chair is our constitutional responsibility to pass a balanced budget,” Lakeland Republican Kelli Stargel said in statement to Politico. “And in a time-limited environment, I don’t know that we will have sufficient time to revisit SB 2012 this session.”