HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) - Republican state senators want Pennsylvania to join the growing number of states barring transgender athletes from joining female sports.

"We want to ensure that female students in high school athletics and college sports have a level playing field," Republican State Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill of York County said.

Senate Bill 9, which every female Republican state senator sponsors, would require school sports teams designated for women to be exclusively for athletes assigned female at birth.

"These are opportunities that women who came before us fought very hard to achieve and we want to maintain those," Phillips-Hill said.

The legislation comes just days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from female sports. Midstate LGBTQ+ activists are fighting back.

"Trying to use bills like Senate Bill 9 to target a tiny minority of young people in Pennsylvania is a solution in search of a problem," said Daye Pope, the Director of Civic Engagement for Trans Advocates Knowledgeable Empowering (TAKE). "This is not a real problem that needs to be solved with taxpayer money and with the time of our legislators."

Democratic State Representative Nikki Rivera, a former high school teacher, believes Senate Bill 9 will do far more harm than good.

"I have witnessed firsthand the importance of acceptance and inclusion in schools," Rivera said. "In education, we build a person up, not knock them down."