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Arkansas Gov. Hutchinson signed SB450, adding AG enforcement to the state's transgender sports ban

On April 27, 2021, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed SB450, the "Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Sports (GIRLS) Act," into law as Act 953 of 2021, roughly a month after signing the state's first sex-based sports-eligibility law, SB354. The law requires K-12 and postsecondary athletic teams sponsored by state-funded entities to be designated by sex based on anatomy and genetics at birth, bars students of "the male sex" from female-designated teams, and creates a civil cause of action letting the Attorney General sue non-complying schools for injunctive relief plus a one-year bar on receiving public funds.

Jurisdiction
Arkansas
Location
Little Rock, Arkansas

Abuses documented

Actors

On April 27, 2021, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed SB450, the "Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Sports (GIRLS) Act," into law as Act 953 of 2021. The law requires that K-12 and postsecondary athletic teams sponsored by state-funded "covered entities" be designated by sex based on anatomy and genetics existing at birth, bars students of "the male sex" from female-designated teams, and creates a civil cause of action letting the Arkansas Attorney General sue non-complying schools for injunctive relief plus a one-year bar on receiving public funds. Sponsored by Sen. Missy Irvin, the bill followed roughly a month after Hutchinson's signature on SB354, the "Fairness in Women's Sports Act," layering an AG-enforcement mechanism onto the same sex-based sports-eligibility restriction that law had already established.

The Arkansas Senate and House of Representatives passed SB450 before it reached Hutchinson's desk. Together with SB354, the two laws made Arkansas one of several states to enact both a baseline eligibility restriction and a dedicated civil-enforcement mechanism against transgender athletes' participation in school sports in 2021.

Why we recorded this

Equal protection under civil rights law requires that government treat people the same regardless of a protected characteristic, including in access to school athletics. A little over a month after signing a first sex-based sports-eligibility law, Arkansas enacted a second one that layers a state attorney-general civil-enforcement mechanism — injunctive relief plus a one-year funding bar — onto the same restriction, reinforcing the exclusion of transgender athletes from teams matching their gender identity. This archive records when government builds enforcement infrastructure around the exclusion of a protected group from a public activity available to everyone else.

Sources

  1. SB450 Bill Detail — Arkansas State Legislature — Arkansas State Legislature primary accessed July 18, 2026
  2. Act 953 of 2021 (enrolled SB450 text) — Arkansas State Legislature primary accessed July 18, 2026
  3. Arkansas AG introduces bill to ban transgender athletes from girls' school sports — KATV secondary accessed July 18, 2026

See also