A invoice stopping transgender girls from competing in feminine sports activities at faculties throughout the nation narrowly cleared the Home of Representatives Tuesday.
Simply two Democrats joined with 216 Republicans in voting for the Safety of Ladies and Women in Sports activities Act, which states that faculties receiving federal funds would violate the regulation in the event that they “permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.”
All 206 “nay” votes got here from Democrats. Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) voted “present” whereas a pair of Texans, Henry Cuellar and Vincente Gonzalez bucked social gathering strains to again the invoice.
“Common sense is back in charge,” the invoice’s co-sponsor, Rep Greg Steube (R-Fla.) declared on X forward of its passage. “With a soon-to-be Republican trifecta, my bill reflects a mandate from the American people: no men in women’s sports.”
Manhattan Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and different Dems denounced the measure as a “cruel attack on transgender children” — with Nadler even suggesting that the measure may permit authorities to topic organic girls to “genital examination.”
The Safety of Ladies and Women in Sports activities Act, like different laws the Home has taken up early within the 119th Congress, was authorized alongside social gathering strains by the decrease chamber within the 118th Congress, solely to languish within the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The GOP is hopeful that the measure will go the Republican-controlled Senate and head to President-elect Donald Trump’s desk after he takes workplace subsequent week. Nevertheless, the invoice requires 60 votes to clear a filibuster.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a former school soccer coach, has launched a Senate model of the Safety of Ladies and Women in Sports activities Act that’s co-sponsored by nearly three dozen of his GOP colleagues.
Tuesday’s vote comes 5 days after a choose nixed the Biden administration’s try to increase Title IX guidelines to incorporate transgender and homosexual folks to lessons protected against intercourse discrimination in public training.
President Biden’s administration tried to broaden the interpretation of “sex” to embody “gender identities,” a transfer that conservative critics contended would have stymied efforts to safeguard girls’s sports activities and different all-female areas.
The Safety of Ladies and Women in Sports activities Act amends Title IX to make sure that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
It additional clarifies that intercourse will probably be “recognized based solely” on one’s genetics at beginning and reproductive biology.
A key provision of the invoice underscores that recipients of federal funds are allowed to have males practice with girls supplied that “no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team” or scholarship alternatives.
Roughly 3% of highschool college students within the US classify themselves as transgender, per information from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
A minimum of half of states throughout the nation have pursued related restrictions on transgender girls competing in feminine sports activities, in line with analysis from the Motion Development Venture.
Transgender rights had been a scorching subject within the 2024 election cycle, with some Democrats figuring out it as an element of their lackluster displaying.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), as an example, induced a stir by suggesting that he didn’t need his two daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”
Moulton voted towards the invoice Tuesday, telling Politico it was “not the sort of balanced, fairness-oriented policy I’ve advocated for, and I won’t vote yes on this bill just because it is the first option that comes to the floor.”
Trump has beforehand indicated he would again restrictions supposed to safeguard feminine athletics.
Late final 12 months, lawmakers within the Home bickered over whether or not or not transgender girls may enter female-only services equivalent to restrooms and locker rooms.
The row erupted in response to the election of Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the primary overtly transgender particular person to serve within the decrease chamber. Republicans equivalent to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) railed towards the chance that McBride would use a lady’s rest room.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) later introduced a coverage mandating that ladies’s restrooms be reserved for organic girls on the Capitol complicated.
