October 13, 2023 – Madison, WI – On Thursday, October 12, 2023, Representative Rick Gundrum (R-Slinger) voted for a package of bills to protect minors from transgender medical interventions and ensure participation in athletic teams is based on the birth gender of the participants. He has released the following statement after the session:
“When we are talking about transgender operations, we are talking about life-altering
operations that cannot be reversed. I was happy to vote for Assembly Bill 465 to prohibit these kinds of procedures for minors. A child’s brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. They should not be pressured into gender transition surgery.
“It is also critical to take a stand to protect women in sports, which I have done by voting for Assembly Bill 377 and Assembly Bill 378. An athlete competing at the collegiate level takes their sport seriously and it is wrong to allow biological males to play on women’s teams because of gender identity. The same is true for K-12 sports. These bills will prevent biological females from losing opportunities at titles and scholarships. In the case of K-12 sports, we are also requiring that parents be notified if team designations are changing from single-sex to coed.
“The left will call these bills transphobic, but they are actually about protecting our youth and defending fair competition in sports. Let’s let kids be kids.”
