The Preserving Girls’ Sports Act was sponsored by Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover. It sought to limit participation on girls’ elementary or secondary school sports teams to females as defined by their reproductive system. (The bill is alive; Republicans can bring it up and pass it if they win a Roseville-area special election next week.)

Scott’s plan would put the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) in charge of sex checks on athletes deemed to be of suspiciously high athletic prowess or questionable femininity.

A doctor’s exam would settle the issue or, alternatively, Scott said, a buccal swab of DNA from a child’s mouth.

This would be a new role for the league which currently doesn’t require schools to report whether children play on teams that are inconsistent with the gender they were assigned at birth. In other words, the league isn’t tracking how many trans girls are currently playing on sports teams nor did it bring the issue to the Legislature as a problem.

In her comments, Scott said she has a recently acquired a new friend, a young female swimmer who hopes to qualify for the state high school swim meet. That swimmer, Scott said, lives in fear that she might, at the pivotal qualifying meet, encounter a transgender female swimmer who beats her in the pool and steals her spot at state.

The hypothetical was quickly rebutted.