On Tuesday, the House of Representatives was set to debate a bill that would ban transgender girls and women from participating in women’s school sports. This issue, which Republicans focused on during their campaigns last year, has become one of their top priorities for the new Congress.
The bill was expected to pass with almost all Republicans in favor, possibly with some Democratic support. It was last debated in 2023, when not a single Democrat voted in favor. However, since then, Republicans have kept pushing the issue, spending at least $111 million on political ads in 2024, claiming that transgender athletes are a threat to girls’ and women’s sports.
The future of the bill in the Senate is uncertain, but even if it fails to pass Congress, former President Donald Trump promised during his campaign to use executive powers to enforce a ban.
Many people following the issue believe that his Education Department might argue that any school allowing transgender girls and women to compete would be violating Title IX, the law that bans sex discrimination in schools. Trump and others argue that transgender athletes have an unfair biological advantage, though some studies comparing transgender athletes to others show mixed results in terms of physical performance.
House Republican leaders quickly brought the bill to the House floor for a vote without first having committee discussions. “One of the most common sense bills that we’ve had is the bill that says men cannot play in women’s sports,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana). “People don’t understand why it’s even an issue.”
Democrats, however, have criticized the bill, calling it harmful and impractical. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) said the bill “does nothing to actually protect people” and could “hurt safety for women and girls.” He added that it was “demeaning” to propose gender checks on young children, calling it “pretty sick” for Republicans to focus on this issue when they had been talking about the economy.
Many voters, including some Democrats, share the GOP’s concerns about fairness in sports, giving Republicans a chance to push the bill forward. More than two dozen states have passed statewide bans, although some of these bans have been blocked by courts, and others do not cover college athletics.
Democrats, under pressure, have mostly avoided taking a strong stance on the issue. In 2023, they all opposed the sports bill, but this year, some may be more likely to support it. One person involved in the issue said that Democrats are “spooked” after the elections and that if enough Democrats in the House support the bill, some Senate Democrats may also vote for it.
However, they are unsure if the bill will pass the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass. This would require at least seven Democrats to join Republicans in voting for it.
During the 2024 campaign, Republicans spent heavily on advertisements that targeted transgender rights, particularly in sports. A report from the Washington Post found that Republicans spent more than $215 million on ads about transgender rights, with $111 million specifically mentioning sports.
These ads often featured images of Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who won an NCAA swimming championship, and Gabrielle Ludwig, a transgender athlete who played college basketball.
After the election, some Democrats blamed the issue of transgender athletes for their losses and hinted that they might support the GOP legislation. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts), who opposed the transgender sports bill in 2023, said Democrats focus too much on avoiding offense.
He supports “reasonable restrictions” on transgender athletes in sports but believes the blanket ban is “too extreme.” He also said that Democrats have failed to discuss this issue seriously, leaving Republicans to set the agenda with bills like this one.
The Biden administration has also struggled with the issue. When the Education Department proposed new rules about how schools should handle sex discrimination, it excluded sports and planned to address it separately.
In 2023, the administration published a proposal that would have banned state bans but offered guidelines for schools to restrict transgender athletes in certain cases, particularly in competitive sports. However, the administration never finalized the proposal and withdrew it in December 2024.
The debate over transgender athletes has been fueled by high-profile cases, such as Thomas’ swimming victories and the success of transgender girls in track events in Connecticut, Oregon, and Washington. However, transgender athletes are still rare. NCAA President Charlie Baker recently told a Senate panel that fewer than 10 transgender athletes are currently competing in college sports.
In K-12 sports, data from states shows very few transgender athletes. In Mississippi, no transgender students were reported to be involved in sports, and in Florida, only two transgender girls have played girls’ sports over the last decade. In Utah, just one transgender girl was competing in sports as of 2022.
Ohio reported that seven transgender girls played sports during the 2023-2024 school year, but there were specific rules for their participation, including a requirement for hormone therapy and proof that they did not have physical advantages.
