House Passes Bill Banning Men From Women’s Sports

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) listens during a press conference in Washington, on Jan. 7, 2025. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The House passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act on Jan. 14, with a vote of 218-206. The legislation excludes males from participating in women’s sports sponsored by organizations that receive federal funding.

The text stipulates that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

“This is a great day for women in America,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said at a press conference following the bill’s passage.

The legislation, introduced by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), is also likely to pass in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.

Proponents of the legislation pointed out male advantages in sports, such as increased muscle and lung capacity. They raised the risk of injury in high-impact sports as well as concerns about young women being forced to share locker room space with biological males.

“It’s dangerous, it’s unfair, it’s rejection of reality, and it is just plain wrong,” Johnson said.

Democrat opposition revolved around concerns that children might be physically inspected to determine their biological sex.

“There is nothing in the bill that talks about parental consent of those inspections … that will be abused, and that is overwhelmingly the position of House Democrats, and why we have strong reservations about the legislation,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told reporters at a press conference before the vote.

This claim was repeated during a debate on the House floor, where Democrats refused to refer to the legislation by name, instead calling it “The GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act.”

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) pointed out that there is no such requirement in the legislation.

“They simply have to go to the birth certificate,“ he said. ”That will give the answer.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights condemned the legislation. In an open letter to Congress, it called for the “full inclusion, protection, and celebration of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex youth.”

Hundreds of progressive political organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and American Atheists, cosigned that letter.

The bill was passed by the House less than a week after a federal judge blocked an attempt by the Biden administration to expand Title IX rules to cover discrimination based on gender identity or sexual preference.

Passed in 1972, Title IX was originally crafted to prevent sex-based discrimination.

The proposed changes were meant to be implemented on Aug. 1, 2024, but were met with a flurry of lawsuits by the attorneys general of dozens of states, including  Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves struck down the change, noting that it would prohibit schools from separating male and female students in bathrooms and locker room spaces.