March 3 (UPI) — Senate Democrats on Monday night blocked a GOP bill to halt federal funding for schools that allow transgender women and girls to participate in girls’ and women’s sports.
In a party-line 51-45 vote, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act failed to achieve the 60 votes needed to secure cloture to defeat the Democrats’ filibuster.
Democrat Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Peter Welch of Vermont and Republican Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming did not vote.
The measure, S. 9, sponsored by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., sought to define compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in athletics to mean that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” A violation of the act by a recipient of federal funds is operating, sponsoring of facilitating athletic programs or activities “to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designed for women or girls,” it states.
The bill narrowly passed the House in January.
For years, federal and state-level Republicans have sought to pass hundreds of bills limiting the rights of the LGBTQ community, but especially those of transgender Americans, targeting their access to healthcare and their ability to use public bathrooms and participate in gendered sports.
While Republicans, as well as conservatives, have argued they are fighting to protect women and girls, opponents accuse them of illegally discriminating against this group of Americans and targeting them for political points as the GOP has campaigned heavily on cultural issues.
The vote also comes as the effort has received support from the White House under the administration of Donald Trump, who has signed several executive orders opponents have described as targeting the LGBTQ community, including one on Feb. 5 to ban transgender women and girls from female sports.
Following the vote Monday, Tuberville remarked that “at least now the American people know the truth.”
“This is far from over,” he said on X. “I’ll NEVER stop fighting to protect women and girls.”
The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday described S. 9 after it failed as part of a “sweeping effort to push transgender people out of public life,” calling for more attention to be placed on ensuring fair and equal opportunity for all girls and women, “not inflicting invasive and humiliating checks and bullying on bids to serve adults’ political purposes.”
“We are thankful to the senators who rejected this ugly effort to codify discrimination within a historic civil rights law,” Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs at the ACLU, said in a statement, “and we will always fight for the freedom of all young people to be themselves at school, including on the playing field.”
Amnesty International similarly thanked the senators for voting against the bill, which it said promotes stigma and discrimination as well as disinformation about what it means to be transgender.
“Your votes ensured that this bill — an attack on human rights — failed to pass today,” it said on X.
The state-level effort to ban transgender girls and womens from sports has resulted in numerous lawsuits, some siding against the bans, including in Idaho, while others, such as that in Tennessee, have stood. Many court cases are still ongoing, with expectations that they may eventually reach the Supreme Court.
Advocates have long championed transgender athletes’ participation in sports, stating doing so could aid them in overcoming the discrimination they experience. A joint Human Rights Campaign Foundation and University of Connecticut LGBTQ+ youth study in 2023 found that sports and extracurricular activity participation by transgender students was associated with higher grades and graduation rates and a reduction in the risk of suicidality and poor mental health.
According to a 2022 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA’s law school, there are more than 1.6 million people above the age of 13 who identify as transgender in the United States, representing about 0.6% of the U.S. population in that age range.
