WASHINGTON – A measure that excluding transgender students The ban on women participating in school sports teams consistent with their gender identity passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The legislation – which made progress 218-206 — came as more states have passed laws banning trans athletes from participating in K-12 school and college sports that match their gender identity, as part of a broader Republican Party-led push to pass anti-trans laws. laws.
President-elect Donald Trump, who is scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 20, repeatedly promised during the campaign that he would ban transgender youth from participating in school sports that correspond to their gender identity.
Nearly all Democrats in the U.S. House opposed the measure, but two Texans — U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez — voted for it. North Carolina Democratic Rep. Don Davis voted “present.”
Florida GOP Rep. Greg Steube introduced the legislation, a Version of this was passed by the House of Representatives in the previous session of Congress, but had no chance of success when Democrats controlled the Senate.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a press conference after the vote: “This is a great day for women in America.”
The Louisiana Republican said the “House of Representatives voted to restore common sense.”
Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer at the University of Kentucky who attended the news conference, said that with the House’s passage, “as a nation, we are one step closer to ensuring that not a single male athlete can win a trophy again.” .”, a place in the squad, playing time, resources or a chance to compete, from a woman.”
Gaines is a leading voice in opposition to the participation of transgender athletes in sports consistent with their gender identity.
The Human Rights Campaignan LGBTQ+ advocacy group, noted that there has been “significant disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and that transgender student athletic participation has been “a non-issue.”
What the bill would do
The measure would change Title IX, so that “sex is determined based solely on an individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
The bill does not specify how exactly the ban will be enforced — a point that opponents of the measure in the House were quick to point out.
Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits schools receiving federal funding from practicing gender discrimination.
In April 2024, the Biden administration released updated Title IX regulations aimed, in part, at strengthening federal protections for LGBTQ+ students.
But last week, a federal judge in Kentucky The administration’s final rule was repealed nationwide, ending enforcement of the updated rules that had drawn forceful Republican opposition and a series of legal challenges and created a political patchwork across the country.
With Republicans now leading both houses of Congress and Trump soon returning to the White House, Republicans are in a more stable position to enact such a ban.
Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville reintroduced a similar measure in the U.S. Senate last week. This effort, that already has the support of 35 Republicans in the Senate would likely need the support of at least 60 senators to overcome the filibuster.
There are 45 Democratic senators in Congress, although independent Senators Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont caucus with Democrats.
The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on the House bill on Tuesday.
Democrats and civil rights groups protest
The measure faced forceful opposition from House Democrats, who spoke during floor debate against a backdrop that read: “The GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act.”
The bill is being referred to by Republicans as the “Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025.”
U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a member of the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee, vehemently opposed the measure because she said it would “empower child abusers and put students across the country at increased risk.”
Bonamici raised concerns about invasion of privacy and harassment over the way the bill would be enforced.
“This is a ‘one size fits all’ bill that would apply equally to all sports, from K-12 schools to colleges,” the Oregon Democrat said during floor debate.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is now together with more than 400 civil rights groupsurged members of Congress on Monday to reject the measure, writing in a letter that “this discriminatory proposal seeks to exclude transgender, non-binary and intersex people from school sports programs.”
“Instead of providing equal facilities, equipment and travel, or some other strategy that female athletes have been pushing for for decades, the bill cynically disguises an attack on transgender people as a matter of athletics policy,” the groups wrote.
Last updated at 5:54 p.m., January 14, 2025
