Riley Gaines Act signed into Georgia law

https://www.thecentersquare.com/georgia/article_00201e33-1feb-456f-9f0a-7b19826ebfb9.html

• By David Beasley | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday signed a series of education bills, including the Riley Gaines Act of 2025 designed to protect women’s sports.

Senate Bill 1, bars males and females from competing on teams designated for the opposite gender, the governor’s office said in a statement. It also requires restrooms and changing areas that can be used by more than one student to be limited to one gender.

The legislation is in line with President Donald Trump's executive order entitled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports." More than half the states in America have similar legislation, many named for Gaines.

Other educations bills signed into law include one providing financial grants as incentives to local boards of education to approve charter school petitions and prohibiting school systems from unfairly attempting to shut down charter schools.

"As the parents of three daughters, Marty and I know just how important it is to keep our children safe and to give them the best possible start in life," Kemp said in a statement. “Girls should not have to share a playing field, a restroom, or a locker room with boys and vice versa, and the commonsense legislation I signed today is about what is fair and safe for our children.

"I want to thank the members of the General Assembly for putting the well-being of our students over politics. Like Marty and me, they want to protect their daughters and sons, they want them to grow up and compete in a fair environment, and they want their children to know that political agendas won’t dictate their lives."

The Riley Gaines Act is named after the former University of Kentucky All-American swimmer who has championed the cause of keeping males out of female sports. It was in the 2022 NCAA Championships in Atlanta, hosted by Georgia Tech, where a Penn swimmer previously spending three years on the men's team encountered Gaines and other women swimmers sparking multiple litigations – and the fight to protect women's spaces. 

“Three years after I, and dozens of other Division I female athletes, were forced to compete against a man in a Georgia pool, the Riley Gaines Act of 2025 is now law,” Gaines said in a statement Monday. “It’s an honor of a lifetime to know our stories help shed light on a grave problem of rampant gender ideology that means women are victims of government facilitated sex discrimination.”