The U.S. House of Representatives passed its first bill of the 119th Congress on Tuesday, voting in favor of the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.
Every Republican consultant voted in favor of the invoice, however solely two Democrats, Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and Vicente Gonzales, D-Texas, voted to move it. The remaining 206 House Democrats all voted in opposition to. Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., voted “current.”
After the invoice was handed, Republican congressional representatives and ladies’s rights advocates condemned the Democrats who voted in opposition to it in a press convention on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., mentioned it was “shameful” that solely two Democrats voted to move the invoice.
“We had two Democrats be part of us, but it surely’s shameful, there needs to be many, many extra. In reality, I argue that each member of this physique voted for widespread sense and to guard girls. But for some cause, for politics I assume, they selected to not,” Johnson mentioned.
“The American folks despatched a transparent message in November, they need us to return to widespread sense, however it appears that evidently a few of our mates within the different celebration are ignoring that plea.”
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Mike Johnson holds up the gavel after being re-elected speaker on the primary day of the 119th Congress on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 3, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, a outstanding advocate for girls athletes’ rights who leads a lawsuit in opposition to the NCAA for its stance in permitting trans athletes to compete as girls, additionally lambasted the 206 Democrats who voted in opposition to the invoice.
Gaines took intention on the Democrats who argued in opposition to the brand new legislation on the premise that it could end in younger ladies being examined for sports activities eligibility.
“We heard of issues like genital exams, we heard that ladies could be requested to point out what’s of their underwear, we heard that they must present inner and exterior anatomy, inspections, Taliban-like enforcers, rent predators to peak at enforcers on and on and on, bizarre fearmongering about predators, however that is what Democrats do greatest,” Gaines mentioned.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., despatched a put up on Bluesky criticizing the laws on Tuesday, making unsubstantiated claims that the legislation would “unleash horrific youngster predators on ladies and younger girls.”
Jeffries’ workplace has not supplied a considerable rationalization as to how the legislation would do that. When requested for remark by Fox News Digital, a spokesperson only said, “The put up speaks for itself.”
Gaines additionally criticized those that mentioned the invoice was “a waste of time.”-
“I heard that this invoice is a waste of time, and let me inform you the message I acquired once I heard that, it is that I’m a waste of time. Girls across the nation, identical to me, are a waste of time. Your daughters are a waste of time to all House Democrats besides for 2.”
Riley Gaines, now a spokeswoman for the Independent Women’s Forum, famously tied Lia Thomas for fifth place within the 200 freestyle finals on the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in March 2022. (Brett Davis-USA Today Sports)
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., who re-introduced the invoice within the House after a failed try and move it in 2023, identified Democrats’ observe document of enabling and celebrating trans inclusion in girls’s sports activities.
“The Democrats have, for years, tried to permit organic [men] to compete in our nation’s girls’s collegiate actions,” Steube mentioned.
“It’s completely absurd that we really need to move a invoice that claims solely girls might be in girls’s sports activities!”
The Biden administration, alongside different Democrats, has taken sweeping actions over the past 4 years to allow trans athletes in girls’s and ladies’ sports activities.
On Jan. 20, 2021, simply hours after President Biden assumed workplace, he issued an executive order on “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.”
This order included a piece that learn, “Children ought to have the ability to study with out worrying about whether or not they are going to be denied entry to the restroom, the locker room, or faculty sports activities.”
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Some on the left have referred to as for an finish to trans inclusion efforts. (Mark Kerrison/In Pictures by way of Getty Images)
Biden issued a sweeping rule that clarified that Title IX’s ban on “intercourse” discrimination in faculties covers discrimination based mostly on gender identification, sexual orientation and “being pregnant or associated situations,” in April. The administration insisted the regulation doesn’t deal with athletic eligibility. However, a number of specialists presented evidence to Fox News Digital in June that it could finally put extra organic males in girls’s sports activities.
Democrats have proposed different federal laws that might enable for extra transgender inclusion in girls’s sports activities. These embrace the Equality Act, which was proposed in 2019 and has seen revisions that “would drive public faculties to permit biologically male athletes who establish as transgender on ladies’ sports activities groups.”
In March 2023, Democrats advocated for a transgender invoice of rights, proposing a resolution “recognizing that it’s the responsibility of the Federal Government to develop and implement a Transgender Bill of Rights.” The decision particularly referred to as for federal legislation to make sure that organic males can “take part in sports activities on groups and in applications that greatest align with their gender identification; [and] use faculty services that greatest align with their gender identification.”
However, these stances appeared to backfire within the November election, as Trump and Republicans pounded Democratic opponents with TV ads about their help for trans inclusion.
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A national exit poll performed by the Concerned Women for America (CW) legislative motion committee discovered that 70% of average voters noticed the difficulty of “Donald Trump’s opposition to transgender boys and males enjoying ladies’ and ladies’s sports activities and of transgender boys and males utilizing ladies’ and ladies’s bogs” as essential to them. And 6% mentioned it was an important problem of all, whereas 44% mentioned it was “essential.”
“This was a chance to show a brand new leaf, go away celebration politics behind to lastly prioritize folks over Washington politics. But sadly, it remained almost a whole celebration vote, with solely two Democrats prepared to affirm and shield Title IX’s protections,” CWA legislative strategist Macy Petty instructed Fox News Digital.
“This vote was not about some difficult coverage problem, however a self-evident fact that civilization has acknowledged since Creation. When deserted, as we’ve witnessed, girls and ladies face devastating penalties that require ethical readability to appropriate. And that’s been tougher and tougher to come back by right here in Washington.”
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