Happy Friday Rulers! It’s been a busy week (month? year?) and we don’t expect it to slow down anytime soon. On that note, let’s get to it. Legislation seeking to bar transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports has seen ample success in the past few years on the state level, with bans enacted in 26 states. And the new year has ushered in a flurry of related bills on both the state and federal level. On Tuesday, the House passed H.R. 28 — also known as the Protect Women and Girls Act of 2025 — which would amend Title IX to bar transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports. Two Democrats voted in favor with one voting present. “The House has delivered on its promise to protect women’s sports,” said Republican Rep. Greg Steube (Fla.), the bill’s sponsor, during a press conference following H.R. 28’s passing. “Americans are united in our belief that men have no place in women’s sports, whether it’s breaking records, entering locker rooms or stealing scholarship opportunities.” The bill previously passed the House in 2023, before failing in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The timeline on S. 9, the current bill’s counterpart in the Senate, is to be determined. H.R. 28’s passing follows years of similar legislation seeking to bar transgender individuals from areas such as sports and state facilities, an issue that has seen an exponential increase in legislative action in the past few years. Doreen Denny, senior adviser at conservative nonprofit Concerned Women for America, was optimistic that H.R. 28 would pass. “Fundamentally, what this bill is intended to do is provide clarity around this confusion that’s now happening across the country about participation in sports that is sidelining women and girls and putting their safety at risk,” Denny tells Women Rule. These bans have been front of mind for Republicans and the incoming Trump administration, and a Republican-controlled House and Senate only makes their enactment more likely.
The bill’s success in the House also follows a federal judge’s ruling last week that blocked the Biden administration’s new Title IX rules, which aimed to strengthen protections against discrimination on gender orientation and sexual identity. “What the House ended up doing was simply giving clarity to the law that the court has already stated,” Denny says, referring to the blockage of the Biden administration’s Title IX rules. But opponents of H.R. 28 argue that these types of bills are harmful to transgender students, as well as women and girls.
Transgender youth involvement in sports is minimal, with 1.4 percent of trans youth ages 13 to 17 participating, according to a 2022 study conducted by the Williams Institute, a UCLA Law school think tank that focuses on issues relating to gender identity and sexual orientation. During a debate on H.R. 28, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said, “This bill is a cruel attack on transgender children, already among the most vulnerable in our society facing high risks of suicide, violence and bullying.” Caius Willingham is a senior policy advocate at nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality. Willingham tells Women Rule that he’s dismayed by the bill’s passing. The bill’s passing was a “sad day for students across the country,” says Willingham, who is convinced it will contribute to an increase in harassment and bullying towards LGBTQ+ students. “It’s going to degrade the educational environment as a whole for all students when they’re in a learning environment that is permeated with hostility,” Willingham says. CDC data from 2023 found 40 percent of transgender or questioning students have been bullied at school. States that have passed anti-trans laws have also seen an increase in suicide attempts by trans youth. Similar bills have also popped up this year in both red and blue states, including Nebraska, Georgia and California. “The attacks against trans people have been accelerating over the past few years, so the intensity of the attacks we are seeing right now are not a surprise, though they are incredibly disturbing,” Willingham says. This increase in related legislation is coupled with a shifting outlook on the issue. A Gallup poll from 2023 found that 69 percent of Americans say that participation in sports teams should be determined by the gender assigned at birth, a slight increase from the previous year. Willingham says that this increase represents a “yearslong misinformation campaign.” And while the data is limited, recent studies have found that trans women have no clear advantages over cis women in elite sports. Now, Advocates for Trans Equality is turning its attention to the Senate, working on concerted outreach in Senate offices and mobilizing members of their community.
“A lot of constituents I work with have already seen these bans implemented at the state level,” Willingham says. “So this is extremely discouraging for those advocates that have been energetically pushing against these attacks at the state level. But at the same time these efforts are doubling because we know we have a chance of staving off the Senate vote.” “We’re committed to doing everything we can to kill this bill in the Senate,” Willingham says.
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