House Passes Anti-Trans 'Save Women's Sports' Bill - Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 - H.R.734
How do you feel about the GOP-led ban on transgender athletes?
What's the story?
- Last month, a GOP-backed 'Save Women's Sports' bill passed the House 219-203, with Democrat lawmakers calling it an example of "transgender bullying."
- The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act aims to prevent transgender women and girls who were assigned male at birth from competing in women's sports.
- In a recent poll by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland, 55% of Americans opposed trans athletes in women's sports at the high school level, while 58% opposed it at the college level.
- Over two dozen states have banned transgender youth from playing on girls' and women's teams since 2021.
What are supporters saying?
- Republican supporters say the bill will protect biologically female athletes from competing against biological men, who often dominate them in speed, strength, and endurance due to biological differences and "physical advantages."
- Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said:
"We hate no one. It is ridiculous that we have had to stand here today to defend the rights of women and girls to participate in sports against other women and girls and they not being taken advantage of by biological males."
- Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), the bill's sponsor, believes the push to include transgender athletes defies Title IX:
"Congress in 1972 created Title IX to protect women's sports to enable women to have an equal playing field in athletics. In worship to their trans idols, the administration wants to flip that on its head. It is insane."
- Steube's bill will ban schools from receiving Title IX federal funding if they permit athletes who were assigned male at birth to play on women's or girl's sports teams.
What are opponents saying?
- No Democrats voted in favor of the bill, arguing that the legislation is a tool to bully and oppress transgender youth.
- Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) said:
"This bill is about bullying children. Stop bullying children."
"House Republicans are choosing to bully and belittle trans children. This is about attacking a small group of children, and it is shameful."
"We should rename it the 'cancel kids trans hate' bill. This bill fuels a virulent hate campaign against kids who just want to play with their friends."
Do you support the GOP-led ban on transgender athletes?
-Emma Kansiz
(Photo credit: iStock/South_agency)
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Banning transgender women from women's sports is not an evidence based approach.
What needs to happen is to based participation on testing testosterone levels which is responsible for muscle mass and oxygenation of muscles for any women that have had gender assignment treatment taking into account female athletes with DSD (Differences in sex development is a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs, including genitals. It means a person's sex development is different to most other people's) similar to drug testing currently done.
"Testosterone is important to athletic performance because it increases muscle mass, strength, and hemoglobin levels."
"Joanna Harper, a Ph.D. student at Loughborough University who studies transgender athletes’ performance, questions whether the WA fully considered the scientific evidence. “I was disappointed with the decision,” says Harper, who is transgender. “The idea that it was necessary to ban trans women to protect the female category seems so far-fetched.”
"a 2015 study by Harper of eight women, found their race times slowed after transitioning from male to female, while their performance relative to sex-matched runners stayed the same. The results suggest they have no advantage over cisgender women."
"Female athletes with DSD, such as South African runner Caster Semenya, often have higher levels of testosterone than other women. While cis men in general have testosterone levels that rangefrom 10 to 35 nmol/L, cis women’s testosterone usually stays below 2.4 nmol/L."
"In a 2018 ruling, WA said transgender athletes and people with DSD could compete in women’s events as long as their testosterone levels were below 5 nmol/L. Harper was on an expert committee advising WA that last year recommended lowering the limit to 2.5 nmol/L for both trans athletes and people with DSD. But the organization chose to apply that limit only to athletes with DSD and to ban female trans athletes from competition."
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/
https://www.science.org/content/article/world-athletics-banned-transgender-women-competing-does-science-support-rule
Here they go again , the Republican right dealing with anxiety by banning what they fear rather than actually addressing complicated problems responsibly .
It's unfair to the young women who participate in their gender sport. A transgender would have the attributes of a male which would make that person stronger than the women playing that sport. If it's that important come up with a transgender league.
This is another item in the theme of technical advancement moving forward without thinking it through. Actions have consequences and this one, like many others created a quagmire.
Blocking puberty before it happens, might make it work, but I'm no expert. Does one, two, three years, etc move the needle towards unfairness each year? I don't know. Are people identifying as female, but haven't done anything to change their physicality allowed to participate in female competitive sports? Because that is unfair. Testing might work, but sports start in jr high and high school. None of them has the money for medically testing before competing. So, it's a hot mess. The only way to get this right is not step into it.
So, while it's not the popular choice, unless one started puberty blockers before puberty (and that's deemed a level playing field) you don't get to play in woman's sports. Or to take it to the ungodly let's create a committee step further, some committee determines and average baseline medically of a female. Then depending on where the I've just gotta play competive sports person falls in testing for that, which they must pay for, before every competition, there is a predetermined allowance for the difference in physicality. Maybe one or more seconds gets shaved off their time. However, if it's a team sport, this person just has to play, sorry no can do. We've bent over backwards to try to make things fair for you, but that's an unsurmountable one. You'll just have to accept life is unfair sometimes and this is one of those times.
While I feel sorry for someone who has to live a dual life, this problem affects 1% of population. Male physical development give men a physical and biological advantage ove women of equal age. It is not fair to women athletes to have to compete against male who declares themself a woman.
Biology doesn't lie. Allow trans people to compete in a league composed of themselves.
So my question is so if a transgender person is in a women wrestling match. Does that go against the violence against women act? But whatever do you want don't come crying when you're wrong
Hey GOP, how is this improving the economy, or stopping crime, or fixing immigration?
It's clear that the right wing is too scared of trans people to actually keep any of the promises they made before the last election.
Picking on trans people is all they have.
yet another sign of GOP, attempt to exclude a human being from participation.
I thought Dems were the "Party of Science". APPARENTLY NOT. XX is not the same as XY.
IF "trans women" were women, we would not have to specify "trans" before the word "woman". They are not females no matter how they choose to identify, what they choose to wear or what other steps they choose to take to try to be women.
William Thomas was a male swimmer in the MIDDLE of the college pack. Viola! After identifying as a woman, Lia Thomas is now a championship swimmer. SHAME ON every lawmaker who discriminates against biological FEMALES!
Trans people should either compete with their biological similar teammates or compete against themselves.
No one should be bullied - and NO ONE SHOULD BUY THE LIE promoted by allys of the trans community.
Trust science!
Everything in my compassionate and liberal soul makes me want to fight against this because it seems to add so much unnecessary drama and conflict to an already muddy water, but everything I know about women's athletics (which is little except that I am a woman and had female friends who were athetletically inclined in high school and college) makes me think that men who trans to women would have an unfair advantage over women, even from the muscle building and experience from before the trans procedures took place. Their bodies are already stronger and more fit by the time they reach puberty. I don't see how a woman, born female, could ever catch up, and this is not fair or right. This is why there has been struggle and fight for the existance of women's sports for so long, for women competing against women to be acknowledged as a legitimate entertainment or sporting event. Yes, I can imagine parents and even a boy himself using this procedure to gain a greater advantage or edge in sports just as some parents hold their sons back from starting kindergarten till they are six so as to give them weight and maturation advantages for playing high school football and other sports. However, I have seen no scientific data supporting either position; maybe being transgender doesn't make a difference. What's more, I hate to think of "confused" youth (as in one's gender not matching one's birth gender assisgnment; confused is probably not the right term, and I apologize to anyone I have offended) having to make permanent, physical and medical decisions and changes at such early ages as to prevent onset of puberty. I would never want such a youth to be prohibited from beginning such changes by a legislative decision (It's none of the government's business.), but they shouldn't feel pressure to make or at least begin the change by a certain age, just to be able to participate in sports. So much is involved over a lifetime of living as one gender or another, I'm not sure that a person who has not yet reached puberty can even begin to understand all that would be involved in the decision. We simply do not have much data to consider regarding ultimate satisfaction with gender transition at this time. The only person I have known who underwent the transition took her own life within 3 or 4 years of the surgeries.
Whimsically and unrealistically, I think that competitive sports are a stupid, unproductive, and wasteful human pastime, but I know that we cannot simply ignore or eliminate the fact of them. This is another reason why they should be eliminated, however, because I'm not sure how sports can ever be evaluated as to fairness of competition since birth status is no longer considered the considered the end-all assessment. But as someone in the discussion above already pointed out, this is a question that actually matters to such a small percentage of people and is of such a relative unimportantance, as compared to world hunger, immagration, fair labor compensation, etc. that it is hard for me to see why we should get into such uproarious conflict on the issue. Let's just keep the government out of it, yet the legalities will keep rearing their ugly heads because sports is such big business, unfortunately, and litigation will continue whenever inequalities are perceived by either side. I would not be able to cast a vote on the question, were I a legislator.
Everyone should have access to sports. It is a difficult playing field to make level and fair. I encourage discussion among groups and people to have healthy competition and representation.
I have no problem with trans men playing sports. There's no unfair advantage. Trans women are another matter. This is just common sense, folks. Really. If you plan to pretend to be a girl/woman, you shouldn't think everyone should allow you to dominate girl's/women's sports. In what fantasy world would that be fair? It's one thing to be delusional; it's quite another to expect everyone else to share your delusion.
Female sports are set so that females can compete against other females. This effort of people who feel they should compete again a person of the opposite sex harms the efforts of what title 9 stands for.
If these people feel they are female there are way to prove it. including brain scans https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sex-differences-brain-anatomy
I oppose the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 - H.R.734
No one's changing their entire life just to win a few basketball games. Let trans kids play sports just like anyone else
Women sports are not being impacted by anything other than the right wing trying to exploit it for their agenda. Stop vilifying trans people!
No shock here with the Democrats voting against a bill that would restrict Transgender women from being excluded from biological women sports.
It is a shame when a man that is convinced he is a women competes against a women instead of competing against the men because he doesn't have a chance to win.
How about competing against other Transgender women, I guess that wouldn't be prudent then would it.
I don't see Transgender men racing to compete against biological men.
I don't care if your LGTBQ+ or whatever as long as you compete against the same communities that you belong too.
Again my politicians do something constructive like "Term Limits" age control for the geriatric politicians in the House, Senate and White House and abandon the assisted living you have in Washington DC known as the beltway politians.
It's time to declare the Catholic and Evangelical churches as hate group. They should not be eligible to receive one cent from federal or state governments. Tax the crap out of them
Hate and fear and cold hard cash drive Republicans and their every action.
same on the house
Vote NO
Leave people alone, the gop are creepy with all the attention they pay to peoples genitals and bedrooms...Do your job and work on bills that help all Americans and not just your rich donors.
This is a matter of human rights and should not be up for a vote. It is an attempt to silence and erase one type of person!
This us ridiculous.
With millions of American children going hungry every day and American women dying from the effects of pregnancy and lack of healthcare, it's good to know Republican's priorities. Thank you causes!
With millions of American children going hungry every day and women dying from the effects of pregnancy and the lack of healthcare, it's good to know where the gop's priorities lie! Thank you causes!
Removing trans women from women sports IS transphobic. The argument is commonly made my liberals and democrats that follows the structure "I support transgender women, however, having trans women in women sports is unfair" This is rooted in transphobia. By arguing that trans women do not belong in women sports is to say that you do not view them as women. That is the very seed in which transphobia comes from. If we want an inclusive world we must set regulations for trans women not ban them.
-President, SBMS
Do not support this bill. Look after our transgender community members.
Who can say that it is fair for a biological man to compete against biological women! It's NOT FAIR! Biological males are built differently than biological females. Here are examples 100 M Sprint Women's world record time 10.49 sec, men's 9.58 sec, almost a full second faster! 100 M Freestyle - Women's world record 51.71 sec, men's 46.86 almost 5 full seconds faster!!! Long Jump - Women's world record 7.52 M, men's 8.95 M, more than 2 full meters farther! Shot Put - women's world record 22.63 M, men's 23.37 M, 3/4 of a meter further! 4X100 Freestyle - Women's world record 3:29.3 M:S, men's 3:08.20, almost 30 seconds faster!!! Yes these are the world records so the best of the best but these numbers are easily looked up but it shows the disparity of the differences between Women's VS Men's sports. So how can it be fair for say Usain Bolt to clams he is now a trans Women and decides to run in the Olympics as a women. He would win every event he would enter! No women would even be close! Or if Michael Phelps decided he was a trans women and do the same in women's swimming. He again would win every event he entered and the best of the best women would be seconds behind, not tenths or hundredths of a second but full seconds. Power Lifting - women's 198+ class Squat - 705lbs, men's 198 class (to get as close as possible to apples vs apples so to speak) 750lbs, that's 45lbs more which is a lot in powerlifting! Women's 198+ bench press record 457lbs, men's 198 551lbs, almost 100 more lbs!! Women's 198+ dead lift record 606lbs, men's 198 record 825lbs!!!! 219 more lbs!!!! Biological Men need and just only compete against biological men not biological women! We must do whatever is necessary to make sports fair for men and women! Men competing directly against women is not fair!
What a hateful country we are, in spite of a document that supposedly protects the rights, protection, and dignity of all people. The white religious fanatics are trampling the foundations of our society routinely, and the politicians are the worst, enabling it regularly. I do not support the disregard of transgender people and find it highly cruel and offensive.
Transgender Athletes are athletes and studies have shown trans Athletes perform the same as cisgender athletes, this is just propaganda led nonsense.