Women in the House Republican caucus celebrated the passage of a bill on Thursday that would bar athletes born as male from competing in sports designated for women and girls.
Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs or activities, including athletics programs in elementary and secondary public education and college athletics. The “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023” clarifies the Title IX definition of “sex” as applying specifically to a person’s “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The bill would prohibit people born male who identify as female from competing in women’s sports competitions.
Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), the mother of two daughters who have competed in middle school and high school swimming, told NTD that “the thought of them having to put in so much work and then compete against a biological male, it’s just fundamentally unfair.”
Houchin noted the example of Riley Gaines, a female All-American college swimmer who had to compete against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. While Gaines and Thomas tied for fifth place at the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming Championship, NCAA officials allegedly insisted on letting Thomas take the fifth-place trophy from that event.
Houchin said allowing transgender athletes to compete against females poses a risk of costing those females scholarship opportunities, but it also poses a safety risk in some cases.
“It can be very dangerous for a biological male to participate in sports with biological women,” Houchin said. “We’ve seen that happen with in the MMA [mixed martial arts] and in volleyball and soccer and other sports that are more of those contact sports that make it very unsafe, physically, for our young girls.”
Houchin and Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) both listed Gaines as an example of women who have been impacted by competition with athletes born male. Gaines has since become an outspoken critic of allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. Houchin and Miller said young women who are similarly being impacted should not be afraid to speak out.
“If you’re afraid you’re going to lose something, I want to say we’re going to end up losing everything, and we have to fight back,” Miller told NTD. “There’s other young women like Riley Gaines, and others that have been courageous and have spoken up, and I applaud them, I want to encourage them to do that.”
Petty told NTD about her own experience going up against a transgender athlete about five years ago. She said she and her teammates felt a consensus that “this is cheating.”
“We didn’t realize that it was going to continue, that anyone would allow this to continue happening and that eventually it would kind of snowball into what it is today, is we’re seeing male athletes across the country stealing spots and scholarships from female athletes,” Petty said.
Democrats Say Bill Bullies Children
Democrats in the House, who universally opposed the bill, said the legislation was meant to bully children.“This bill is about bullying children. Stop bullying children,” Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) argued during a House floor debate on the bill.
“House Republicans are choosing to bully and belittle trans children,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said. “This is about attacking a small group of children, and it is shameful.”
H.R. 734 faces tougher odds of passing in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Even if the bill garnered enough support from both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, Biden has indicated he would veto the legislation if it did pass.
“Politicians should not dictate a one-size-fits-all requirement that forces coaches to remove kids from their teams,” the Biden administration’s policy statement continues. “At a time when transgender youth already face a nationwide mental health crisis, with half of transgender youth in a recent survey saying they have seriously considered suicide, a national law that further stigmatizes these children is completely unnecessary, hurts families and students, and would only put students at greater risk.”
