Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear found himself defending his record on transgender issues after appearing on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, prompting a sharp rebuke from the Republican National Committee over his past vetoes of bills involving transgender students and minors. The Democratic governor, who is Kentucky's twice-elected chief executive, told the network that Democrats do not throw anybody under the bus, addressing scrutiny over two vetoes he issued while Republicans controlled the state legislature.
RNC National Press Secretary Natalie Baldassarre criticized Beshear's transgender policy record, according to Fox News. Per her statement, Baldassarre accused the governor of prioritizing transgender policies over female athletes. The criticism centers on Beshear's 2022 veto of Senate Bill 83, known as the Save Women's Sports Act, and his 2023 veto of Senate Bill 150, both of which the Republican-controlled legislature later overrode.
What the Two Vetoed Bills Actually Did
Senate Bill 83 prohibited male students from participating on girls' athletic teams from sixth grade through college and required that girls' and women's athletic teams be based on biological sex, per Fox News. Notably, the bill did not include restrictions on transgender medical treatments for minors — that provision came a year later with Senate Bill 150, which restricted transgender medical treatments for minors and required school policies limiting opposite-biological-sex use of restrooms, locker rooms and showers.
Beshear vetoed both measures, and the Kentucky legislature overrode his veto of Senate Bill 83 as well as his veto of Senate Bill 150, according to the same Fox News report. In defending his opposition to Senate Bill 83, Beshear argued that existing Kentucky High School Athletic Association rules were already sufficient to protect competitive fairness, pointing at the time to Kentucky's lone transgender athlete. He said sports should be fair and have no unfair advantage.
Existing School Athletics Rules Predated the Law
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association already had a policy addressing transgender participation in athletics well before lawmakers took up Senate Bill 83, as Kentucky Lantern reported. Those rules generally required athletes to participate according to the sex listed on their birth certificate but provided a pathway for transgender athletes meeting specified medical requirements, per Fox News. Kentucky Lantern's reporting also noted the issue had never previously arisen in Kentucky schools before the legislative push.
As for Senate Bill 150, Beshear's campaign said in 2023 that his opposition was based on multiple provisions within the bill and was not specifically about its prohibition of sex-change surgeries for minors, according to Fox News. Beshear has separately defended his Senate Bill 150 veto on parental-rights and mental-health grounds. Fox News Digital reported that Beshear did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the RNC's latest criticism.
Culture-War Fight Fits a Broader Political Pattern
The renewed attack lines up with a strategy Kentucky Lantern described years earlier, when it reported that Republicans viewed hot-button social and cultural issues as a way to erode Beshear's remarkably high poll ratings. That dynamic has persisted as Beshear built a national profile; a New York Times opinion piece published last month noted he has twice been elected governor of a state that gave Donald Trump a nearly 31-percentage-point margin in 2024, and that Kentucky voters gave him the highest approval rating among Democratic governors this year.
Beshear told the Times he spends most of his time on issues that matter broadly, saying, “Eighty percent of my time I spend on things that matter to 100 percent of my people.” Whether that framing satisfies Republican critics remains an open question, but the fight over Senate Bills 83 and 150 shows no sign of fading as national attention on Beshear intensifies.
