By Journalist Amaya Brooks (OBU)
Representative Walker is a bright young delegate to the House. She is a zero star from the Southeastern Delegation and is starting her time in OIL off with a bang. The bill that Representative Walker will be presenting is one that has been highly contentious in politics nationwide, but is a great conversation that needs to be happening.
“The main focus is that this bill is about emphasizing how important everyone participating in team sports is, how important it is to meet people from different backgrounds, to learn teamwork, motor skills, sense of community.”
Representative Walker’s bill would allow transgender athletes to participate in sports in public schools. “Up until now this was a decision between the family, the student, and the coaches. The state legislature cannot account, in its essence, for every single case and it would be irresponsible to do so.”
As her bill prepares to hit the floor, Representative Walker says, “Being a member of the queer community and having this kind of platform, I feel obligated to platform these types of issues. The kind of legislation this is serving to nullify, just the existence of it normalizes the fact that even a little bit we’re allowed to discriminate against people. That quite frankly should not be permitted.”
The concerns abound with the topic of transgender athletes. According to Representative Walker, “Whenever legislatures were asked to cite local examples as justification for their bills they were either not able to do so, refused to answer, or they would cite the same Connecticut case over and over again.”
The importance and prevalence of transgender issues in Oklahoma politics presents many questions for transgender students in the state of Oklahoma. Having complicated issues like this come on to the floor of the House of Representatives can bring about great opportunities for conversation and understanding that can lead to change, after all, these situations can be more complicated than people give it credit for.