GOP bill to ban trans athletes from women’s sports blocked in Senate

Legislation to prevent transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports failed to advance in the Senate on Monday after all Democrats voted against it.

The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act failed to clear an initial procedural hurdle on a 51-45 vote. It needed 60 votes to advance, which would have required at least seven Democrats to vote with all Republicans to move it. The bill cleared the House in January on an almost entirely party-line vote.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), sought to amend Title IX, the federal civil rights law against sex discrimination, to prohibit schools from allowing transgender students to compete in athletic events “designated for women or girls.” It defines sex as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

It would have effectively codified into law a Feb. 5 executive order signed by President Trump to ban transgender student-athletes from participating on girls’ and women’s sports teams.

Senate Republicans had expected resistance from Democrats, who blocked the same bill from advancing in 2022.

Ahead of the vote Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said it “will be a time of choosing for Democrats.”

“If the Democrats vote to oppose this legislation, they’ll have to answer to the women and girls they vote to disenfranchise,” he said.

Tuberville pressured swing state Democrats to advance the measure in a series of posts on the social platform X on Monday.

Later, he argued that the question of whether to restrict transgender athletes’ participation in sports isn’t a partisan one, pointing to a recent New York Times/Ipsos poll that found 79 percent of Americans believe trans athletes should not be allowed to participate in women’s athletics.

“This doesn’t have to be a Republican or Democratic issue,” Tuberville said. “This is about standing up for girls and women, which I know my Democratic colleagues also care about.”

A recent Pew Research Center survey found Americans have grown more supportive of policies restricting transgender rights, including ones that require athletes to compete on sports teams that match their birth sex.

Opponents of policies that prevent transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports have said such restrictions will further isolate transgender young people and stigmatize their identities.

They say such policies also fuel public speculation about whether female athletes, transgender or not, look feminine enough to compete in women’s sports.

“What Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up a culture war and divide people against each other,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said Monday.

House Democrats, all but two of whom voted against the bill in January, said the measure would open the door to sexual abuse and invite invasive scrutiny of girls’ bodies, dubbing it the “Child Predator Empowerment Act.”

“Bills like these send the message that transgender kids don’t deserve the same opportunities to thrive as their peers simply because of who they are. And they are impossible to enforce without putting all kids at risk of invasive questions or physical examinations just because someone doesn’t look or dress like everyone else,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ civil rights group.

While half of the states in the nation have passed laws barring transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity, the exact number of trans student-athletes remains unclear.