The US House of Representatives voted 218-206 Tuesday to approve a bill that would ban transgender women from competing in women’s school sports teams.
The bill bars persons biologically male at birth from participating in school sports activities “designated for women or girls.” However, the prohibition does not bar transgender women from training with women’s school sports teams as long as they do not take related competitive positions or rewards such as team spots, “scholarships, admission to an educational institution, or any other [accompanying] benefit.”
In the House’s debate over the bill, various Democrat legislators criticized the bill for being discriminatory and dishonest and enabling child predation. Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA) argued:
This bill doesn’t protect a girl’s rights. It eliminates them. It requires her to answer an adult’s humiliating questions. It will accelerate our national crisis of sexual assault on young women. … Whatever the problem [it] is we are trying to solve, the genital inspection of little girls is the wrong answer. I urge my colleagues to reject this bill[.]
Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI) expressed shock and responded, “There is no requirement for inspections. And there is no necessary effort other than going to a person’s birth certificate.” Representative Suzanne Bonamici asked about how the bill could be enforced with respect to intersex people, and Walberg replied that the bill does not apply to them.
A coalition of more than 400 civil rights groups sent a letter to the House the day before the vote urging the bill’s rejection. The letter stated:
[T]his legislation does not address the longstanding barriers all girls and women have faced in their pursuit of athletics. Instead of providing for equal facilities, equipment, and travel, or any other strategy that women athletes have been pushing for for decades, the bill cynically veils an attack on transgender people as a question of athletics policy.
Walberg stated that allowing biological males to compete in sports “makes women second class citizens in their own sports and puts their safety at risk.”
Representative Mary Miller (R-IL) expressed support for the bill:
We have already seen numerous examples of female athletes being injured by grown men claiming to be women. The physical advantages possessed by male athletes are undeniable. Allowing men to compete alongside women undermines the integrity of women’s sports and diminishes the hard work, dedication, and dreams of female athletes. This bill … [also] keeps men out of our daughter’s locker rooms and showers. By passing this bill, we honor the legacy of Title IX[.]
The bill must be approved by the senate and signed by the president to become law. As President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration into office draws near, the likelihood of its passage increases. Trump previously announced that part of his official presidential agenda would be to urge Congress to pass a bill making clear that the Education Amendments of 1972’s Title IX “prohibits men from participating in women’s sports.”
