Home and Senate Republicans on Tuesday refiled laws to bar transgender girls and ladies from competing on college sports activities groups that match their gender identification, jump-starting work on a difficulty the GOP promised to prioritize within the new 12 months.
The invoice, titled the Safety of Ladies and Ladies in Sports activities Act, would amend Title IX — the federal civil rights regulation prohibiting intercourse discrimination at colleges and education schemes that obtain authorities funding — to ban colleges from permitting transgender feminine athletes to take part in an athletic program or exercise “that is designated for women or girls.”
It defines intercourse as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) is the first sponsor of the measure within the Home, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) is main the measure’s introduction within the Senate. Each males sponsored an identical payments final 12 months, with blended success.
Transgender individuals and points performed a central position in GOP campaigns in 2024, and President-elect Trump has promised to ban trans girls and ladies from competing on feminine sports activities groups when he takes workplace later this month.
“Republicans have promised to protect women’s sports, and under President Trump’s leadership, we will fulfill this promise,” Steube stated Tuesday in an announcement.
Voters, Steube added, have “loudly spoken” in opposition to permitting transgender athletes to take part on sports activities groups that finest align with their gender identification. Most People oppose together with transgender athletes in sports activities, based on polls performed by Gallup, the Pew Analysis Middle and The Washington Put up.
“President Trump ran on the issue of saving women’s sports and won in a landslide,” Tuberville added Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Tuberville advised Fox Information that the first-term senator is working carefully with the incoming Trump administration on the difficulty. Tuberville’s workplace didn’t return a request for touch upon the senator’s conversations with Trump.
“I have said many times that I think Title IX is one of the best things to come out of Washington. But in the last few years, it has been destroyed,” Tuberville stated Tuesday, referring to adjustments made to the landmark intercourse discrimination regulation by the Biden administration.
The Schooling Division in April finalized a set of adjustments to Title IX, together with an enlargement of the regulation’s protections for LGBTQ college students, which triggered a wave of lawsuits from Republican-led states that argued the brand new laws undermine the regulation’s authentic intent.
The Biden administration’s rule, which modifies the definition of intercourse discrimination to incorporate sexual orientation and gender identification, doesn’t apply to highschool sports activities, as some conservative leaders — together with Trump and Tuberville — have argued. The administration withdrew a separate proposal meant to deal with transgender student-athletes in December.
“While I’m glad that the Biden administration ultimately rescinded the proposed rule, Congress has to ensure this never happens again,” Tuberville stated Tuesday, referring to the rule governing athletics eligibility.
The Senate, now managed by Republicans, is more likely to take up the measure. The higher chamber declined to take action final 12 months after the GOP-led Home handed Steube’s invoice.
The laws will probably be considered one of Home Republicans’ high priorities this Congress, based on its preliminary package deal of guidelines.
“This bill would make girls’ sports safe for girls again, and I’m going to do everything in my power to help it pass Congress quickly,” stated Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), one of many Senate invoice’s 29 Republican co-sponsors.
Kennedy, a vocal opponent of transgender athletes in girls’s sports activities, has stated beforehand that he believes trans girls and ladies “have obvious and significant advantages” over cisgender, or non-transgender, girls in sports activities.
“I mean, unless you are the reason that your parents drink, you know that,” Kennedy stated throughout a ground speech in Could.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee listening to on federal laws round sports activities playing final month, Kennedy grilled NCAA President Charlie Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, over transgender athletes in school sports activities.
Baker testified that there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes he’s conscious of who at the moment compete at NCAA member colleges, accounting for lower than 0.01 % of all NCAA athletes nationwide.
Up to date at 5:13 p.m. EST
