The “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025” passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, barring male-to-female transgenders from competing against biological females in K-12 schools and colleges.
The legislation passed 218-206, supported by only two Democrats: Reps. Henry Cueller and Vicente Gonzalez, who are both from Texas. North Carolina Democratic Rep. Don Davis voted “present,” which had a neutral effect. Florida GOP Rep. Greg Steube introduced the legislation.
“The radical left is not in step with the American people on the issue of protecting women’s sports,” Steube declared in a statement. “Americans have loudly spoken that they do not want men stealing sports records from women, entering their daughters’ locker rooms, replacing female athletes on teams, and taking their daughters’ scholarship opportunities.”
Steube introduced similar legislation which passed the House in the previous session of Congress but it was never put to a vote when Democrats controlled the Senate. This time around, President-elect Trump supports the legislation and Republicans control the Senate.
“My legislation stands for truth, safety, and reality: men have no place in women’s sports,” Steube said. “Republicans have promised to protect women’s sports, and under President Trump’s leadership, we will fulfill this promise.”
U.S. House Speaker and Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson said “this is a great day for women in America” at a press conference following the vote.
Riley Gaines Barker, a former University of Kentucky swimmer also at the press conference, said that the House vote brought the U.S. “one step closer as a nation to making sure that not one more male athlete is able to take a trophy, a roster spot, playing time, resources or an opportunity to compete, from a woman.”
The measure would amend Title IX so that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law that bars schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination.
The measure drew strong opposition from House Democrats, who spoke during the floor debate in front of a backdrop that read: “The GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act.”
Rep Suzanne Bonamici, a Democrat from Oregon who was part of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, fiercely opposed the bill, which she said would “empower child predators — putting students across the country at increased risk.”
Bonamici and other Democrats alleged enforcement of the bill would enable privacy violations and harassment, though the bill does not specify how it will be enforced.
The Human Rights Campaign alleged the bill’s backers had issued “considerable disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and claimed that trans students’ sports participation “has been a non-issue.”
On Monday, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, along with more than 400 civil rights groups, called on Congress to reject the measure, writing in a letter that “this discriminatory proposal seeks to exclude transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people from athletics programs in schools.”
“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,” the groups wrote.