House passes bill to ban transgender student-athletes from women's sports

The House passed legislation Tuesday that would ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports at schools and institutions receiving federal funds.

The bill, which would also amend federal law to say that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth," was approved largely along party lines in a 218 to 206 vote.

Only two Texas Democrats voted for the measure: Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez. Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., voted present, and no Republicans opposed the measure.

The bill now heads to the Senate.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., who sponsored the legislation, said it was aimed at protecting women's sports.

"The distinction between men and women is clear and evident, and the erasure of this division has been promulgated by those in the radical left who seek to dismantle the core foundation of our society," Steube said on the House floor before the vote. "We must never let our country and the American way of life surrender to this immoral ideology."

Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., the only woman in Congress who played Division I college sports, said Republicans were using the measure to "inject themselves into decisions they have no business making."

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"I have long placed my trust in the governing bodies of sports — the experts who have dedicated their lives to these games — to create fair and responsible rules for participation," Trahan said in floor remarks.

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Trahan and other Democrats have referred to the bill as the "Child Predator Empowerment Act," arguing that it puts at risk the safety of children in schools and could expose them to questioning and inspection of their bodies.

The bill passed the House in the last Congress in April 2023 with no Democratic support and did not advance in the Senate, which at the time was controlled by Democrats. Republicans now hold the majority.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who last week upheld a ban barring transgender people from using single-sex bathrooms that align with their gender identities near the House floor, said Tuesday that Republicans "have yet again stood up for women."

"I'm a Bible-believing Christian, I make no apology about that. But whether you regard that as the truth or not, it’s also nature. It’s biology," he said at a news conference after the vote.