Republicans on the Hill are advancing a bill to amend Title IX, the gender-equity law, to ban transgender girls and women from competing on school and college sports teams that match their declared gender identity but conflict with their sexual biology.
The legislation states that entities receiving federal funding cannot allow individuals assigned male at birth to participate in women’s sports. It defines sex strictly based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” applying this definition solely to athletic participation rather than other aspects of Title IX.
The House passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act on Tuesday with a squeaky 218-206 vote. All Republicans and two Democrats supported the bill.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is leading the Senate version of the bill, while Rep. Gregory Steube (R-FL) sponsors the House version. Both versions have garnered numerous co-sponsors.
Tuberville last week wrote in OutKick Magazine, after acknowledging that Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in any school or educational program that receives federal funding:
Sadly, over the last four years, the Biden administration has done all it can to dismantle Title IX protections for women in favor of radical gender ideology. President Biden’s Department of Education fully intended to rewrite Title IX, issuing a rule that would force schools to allow men to compete in women’s sports and require them to share private spaces together. All in the name of “gender equity.” In the past few days, they rescinded this proposed rule, perhaps realizing how out of touch that stance is with the American public. But their intent was crystal clear.
As a result, what I have long called one of the greatest pieces of legislation to ever pass out of Congress is hanging on by a thread. If the unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. continued to have their way with it, Title IX as we know it would cease to exist. Women’s opportunities to safely participate and benefit from scholastic athletics would greatly diminish—which would not just be a detriment to female student-athletes, but to the entire country.
With President Trump’s resounding victory last November, the American people sent a clear message to Washington that they want to protect and preserve the original purpose of Title IX. One of the primary reasons President Trump won in a landslide is because he ran on the issue of saving women’s sports. Seventy percent of Americans agree: men don’t belong in women’s sports or locker rooms.
After the House vote, Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer at the University of Kentucky, told reporters that with the bill’s passage, “we are one step closer as a nation to making sure that not one more male athlete is able to take a trophy, a roster spot, playing time, resources or an opportunity to compete, from a woman.”
