Exclusive: Nevada lieutenant governor’s legislation blocked because of his opposition to males in female sports

By Chris Woodward
The Center Square

All of Nevada Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony’s bills were killed last session without a hearing, and he had to lay off staff to apparently punish him for his stance on keeping boys out of girls’ sports, The Center Square has learned.

A source who worked for Anthony’s office said Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro told Anthony that his bills would be killed if he didn’t back off the boys-in-girls-sports issue.

The laid-off employees worked for the Nevada Office of Small Business Advocacy, which is under the Lieutenant Governor’s Office.

“The lieutenant governor had three bills by statute that he’s allowed to submit, and all three of his bills died, although there was one bill that we proposed and it was passed under a different name,” Garrett Tamagni, Anthony’s legislative director, told The Center Square.

Tamagni said the reason the bills were killed was Anthony’s support for the Protect Women’s Sports campaign.

“Biological males do not belong in women’s sports,” said Anthony, a Republican, in a March 14 Facebook post.

Legislative records show Anthony’s bills were assigned to committees that never discussed them and covered seemingly non-controversial topics such as agricultural tourism, small business advocacy and recess for elementary school students. All of them were introduced in February but died due to legislative inaction one month after the lieutenant governor’s Facebook post and three months after he started the Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports.

Democrats, who have supported transgender athletes’ participation in female sports, have majorities in the state Assembly and Senate. As such, they control the chambers’ committees and can advance or kill legislation.

Approximately half the states have acted in recent years to prevent transgender athletes, who are biological males, from competing in female sports. Anthony would like Nevada to join the list.

The argument against biological males’ participation is that it’s a matter of fairness and safety for females as well as a violation of a female athlete’s Title IX rights.

“They weren’t going to say outright that they refused to hear any of our bills because of the Protect Women’s Sports issue, but that was blatantly what it was,” Tamagni said about Democrats.

The Center Square contacted Cannizzaro and other Democratic leaders to comment on Tamagni’s allegation, but did not get a response.

Anthony’s bills were Senate Bill 5, Senate Bill 55 and Assembly Bill 53.

SB 5 sought to reauthorize the Office for Small Business Advocacy.

Created in 2021, OSBA was set to expire on June 30, 2025. SB 5 would have removed the expiration date and made OSBA a permanent part of state government while continuing to provide information to small businesses and the public, coordinate with state agencies and local governments on business matters, and do things such as assist in complaints about small businesses. SB 5 was introduced on Feb. 3, assigned to the Senate Government Affairs Committee and died on April 12.

The Legislature’s failure to consider SB 5 resulted in OSBA employees being laid off.

SB 55 would have started a Nevada agriculture tourism program and provided $50,000 for actions such as marketing. The bill also would have provided $50,000 for grants to agriculture tourism businesses.

The third bill was AB 53, a measure to require 20 minutes of outdoor recess time for kids in grades K-5. For middle school to high school students, local county school boards or charter school boards could approve their own outdoor education or recreation elective credit materials. These could have been local activities such as joining a hiking or fishing club, working at a state park for cleanup or attending Department of Wildlife classes.

“Anything like that, we really left it up to the school boards,” said Tamagni. “That bill was passed under the name AB 501, which was presented by the speaker of the Assembly and the majority (leader) of the Assembly, Speaker Steve Yeager and Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, and they passed it literally word for word minus the recess.

“They didn’t want to step on the teachers’ unions toes, but they passed the extracurricular credits,” said Tamagni.

SB 55 and AB 53 were also introduced in February, to the Senate Revenue and Economic Development and Assembly Education committees respectively. Both died on April 12.

When asked again whether Democrats had objections to Anthony’s opposition to males in female sports, Tamagni said yes, adding the Lieutenant Governor’s Office was “very strong” on the Protect Women’s Sports issue during the session that ended in early June.

“We brought lots of young, female athletes throughout the building at one point, and they passed out letters to all the legislators telling them of their experience playing in sports and why they don’t think that boys should be playing in their sports, and these were girls aged middle and high school,” said Tamagni. “Democrats were pissed, to put it lightly.”

In April, during the legislative session, the Nevada Interscholastic Athletics Association changed its policy and said it would now require a physician’s note confirming the birth sex of an athlete. This is due to efforts by the lieutenant governor and a task force he helped form in January.

“Democrats were not happy about that at all,” said Tamagni.

Anthony shares the same position on biological males in women’s sports as another Republican, Gov. Joe Lombardo. But Lombardo did see success with one of his bills, the Nevada Accountability in Education Act, which focused on accountability for schools and educational opportunities. It was merged into a larger bill, Senate Bill 460. SB 460 was passed by the Legislature with bipartisan support in June and signed into law by Lombardo.

One member of the lieutenant governor’s task force on women’s sports is state Sen. Carrie Ann Buck, R-Henderson. Buck told The Center Square that her “goal has always been to promote fairness and opportunity” for Nevada’s female athletes.

“Nevadans are overwhelmingly on the side of common sense and know that men do not belong in women’s sports,” said Buck. “Democrats may block our bills, but they can’t block the truth or silence my fight to protect women, girls and the integrity of competition.”

Democrats can come back in the 2027 session and pass a measure that overrides what the NIAA decided. Regular sessions of the Nevada Legislature are only in odd-numbered years.

By 2027, the makeup of the NIAA could change, or members could reconsider and do away with the athletic association’s policy change. As a result, Tamagni said, “Young female athletes are not truly protected until we have them protected in the Nevada Revised Statutes.”

Multiple phone calls and emails from The Center Square to Yeager and Jauregui were not returned. With the exception of Buck, Republican legislators and committee members did not respond to requests for comment from The Center Square.