One of the first acts of the new House of Representatives: fast-tracking a bill to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
On Friday, the newly sworn-in 119th Congress agreed to a rules package that included the ban—the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act”—as one of 12 that will be fast-tracked to the House floor for a vote. The package states that almost nothing can get in the way of a vote for these 12 bills, save a couple of provisions including one hour of debate.
“The radical left is not in step with the American people on the issue of protecting women’s sports,” Rep. Greg Steube (R., Fla.), who authored the bill, said in a statement Friday.
The bill would amend Title IX, the statute that prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating “on the basis of sex,” and that has been used to require equal opportunities for women’s sports. The bill would add language to Title IX stating it would be a violation for a school to “permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women,” adding that “sex” can be solely defined as “a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
It would apply to all educational institutions receiving federal funding, from elementary schools with sports programs to NCAA collegiate institutions.
The bill has been introduced and debated on multiple occasions, and passed the House in 2023. But the bill died in the Senate.
It is unclear just how quickly the revived bill could be reintroduced on the House floor, but Republicans have campaigned heavily on the issue—as did President-elect Donald Trump, who made it one of his top 20 campaign priorities.
The bill has dozens of cosponsors, and Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.), the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, issued his public support for the bill in a statement Friday.
The bill will almost certainly pass the House, which has a 220–215 Republican majority. It’s unclear how it will fare in the Senate, however. Despite a Republican majority of 53–47, Democrats still have the opportunity to utilize the filibuster to block the bill from being brought to a vote … unless Republicans can convince enough of them to vote in favor of the ban.
