The US House of Representatives has passed sweeping legislation to block transgender athletes from competing in school and college sports events for girls and women.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act bill passed 218-206 in a vote that saw two Texas Democrats break ranks to support the Republican-sponsored measure.
It marks the first stand-alone federal legislation targeting transgender rights to clear either chamber of Congress.
But with just 53 Republican Senators, the bill will need significant Democratic support to clear the 60-vote threshold in the US Senate.
Incoming president Donald Trump would sign off on the bill if it was passed.
During his election campaign he pledged to ban transgender-identifying biological males from competing in women’s sports.
“We will get transgender insanity out of our schools and we will keep men out of women’s sports,” he vowed at a New York rally.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act would rewrite anti-sex discrimination laws in what’s known as Title IX to define sex as “reproductive biology and genetics at birth” – effectively banning transgender athletes from competing on teams matching their gender identity at any school or college receiving federal funding.
“All throughout humanity, we have recognised as a species that there are women and there are men, as God created, who are obviously biologically different,” declared the bill’s sponsor, Florida representative Greg Steube.
He told The Daily Signal: “The Democratic Party should listen to the mandate we just received from America: 70% of moderate voters said [President-elect Donald] Trump’s protection of women’s sports and bathrooms was a driving factor in their vote.”
“Probably the most famous ad of the campaign cycle was the one that the Trump administration ran on this issue, and it resonated with the American people,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told the conservative news outlet.
“So in the opinion polls, this is an 80%, 90% issue or more, depending on which poll you look at, because again, it comports with common sense,” he added.
“We should have every single member of Congress united on this,” the Speaker proclaimed.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act would prohibit “a recipient of federal financial assistance who operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.”
The measure would withhold federal funding from schools that allow males who identify as transgender females to compete on female teams.
“Congressional Democrats must recognise that the American people have spoken on this issue, and they should vote to uphold the intent of Title IX,” Congressman Steube said of the 1972 federal law empowering female athletes. “Men have no place in women’s sports.”
Most American voters oppose allowing transgender-identifying males to compete in women’s and girls sports.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of registered voters think biological males should not be allowed to participate, according to national surveys by pollster Scott Rasmussen.
Meanwhile, a federal court has struck down a Biden administration Title IX rule change that bars discrimination by schools against transgender students.
It found the measure improperly bans any distinctions based on “biological sex,” after the federal government tried to replace it with “gender identity” in sex discrimination laws.
The ruling applies nationwide and means that American schools cannot allow transgender students to use girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms and participate in girls’ sport.
Conservative groups, women’s groups, athletic associations, and school boards combined to successfully achieve five injunctions that halted enforcement of the rule change while their challenge proceeded in court.
The court then concluded that the rule change exceeded authority and was an “arbitrary and capricious agency action.”
“When Title IX is viewed in its entirety, it is abundantly clear that discrimination on the basis of sex means discrimination on the basis of being a male or female,” the court wrote in its opinion.
“As this Court and others have explained, expanding the meaning of “on the basis of sex” to include “gender identity” turns Title IX on its head.”
“Title IX allows “males and females to be separated based on the enduring physical differences between the sexes.”
Christian legal advocates Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represented a West Virginia high-school female athlete andChristian Educators Association International in the lawsuit alongside the state of Tennessee.
The 15-year-old plaintiff was repeatedly forced to compete against a biologically male athlete on her middle school track-and-field team.
That athlete displaced her several times, taking away her spot to compete in a conference championship.
The teen was forced to share a locker room with the male athlete and at times had to endure sexual comments directed toward her.
“This is a colossal win for women and girls across the country,” said ADF CEO Kristen Waggoner.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said it was “a resounding victory for the protection of girls’ privacy in locker rooms and showers, and for the freedom to speak biologically accurate pronouns.”
Former high-performing collegiate swimmer turned women’s rights activist Riley Gaines called it a “huge win for girls and women everywhere. Commonsense is slowly returning.”
Photo: Martin Good / Shutterstock.com
