Old North News

North Carolina state Sen. Vickie Sawyer, R-37th, believes Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper's decision to veto the Fairness in Women's Sports Act shows he supports biological men competing against female athletes.

If Cooper had signed the bipartisan bill into law, North Carolina would have joined 19 other states that took steps to prevent biological men from competing in women's sports this year alone, the Carolina Journal reported in April.

"Today @NC_Governor vetoed HB 574, effectively giving his endorsement of men competing in women’s sports," Sawyer wrote in a July 5 Twitter post. "Gov. Cooper has no interest in supporting and protecting female athletes, only his far-left donors that want to erase women by refusing to accept biology."

The bill passed the North Carolina House with a 73 to 39 vote, the Carolina Journal reported. Three Democrats also voted in support of the law. 

Payton McNabb, a former athlete from Cherokee County, testified in support of the bill, recounting her experience as a high school volleyball player, according to the Carolina Journal. While playing against Highlands High School, a "transgender" player on the other team spiked a ball into McNabb's head. The ball knocked McNabb unconscious and left her with learning challenges and various injuries. 

“The rest of my team was terrified because they didn’t want it to happen to them too, but the other team, the one with the transgender athlete on it, they just kinda laughed,” McNabb said, according to the Carolina Journal.

"It’s been almost 10 months since my life was forever changed. What happened to me was 100% preventable," McNabb, who has become a spokeswoman for Independent Women's Forum, said in a June 14 Twitter post. "If only my rights to compete safely had not been infringed upon by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association transgender athlete policy in 2019."

“At the heart of all sports is competition, and the last thing we want is to take that away from our female athletes," Sawyer, who served as a primary sponsor of the bill, said in an April 24 NC Political News article. "We’ve made far too much progress to go backward and threaten the loss of a scholarship or state championship.” 

A survey conducted statewide among North Carolina residents found 70% of respondents do not support biological men competing against women in athletics, NC Political News reported.

"We don’t need politicians inflaming their political culture wars by making broad, uninformed decisions about an extremely small number of vulnerable children that are already handled by a robust system that relies on parents, schools and sports organizations," Cooper said in a statement about his decision to veto the bill. "Republican governors in other states have vetoed similar bills because they hurt their states’ reputation and economy and because they are neither fair nor needed."