On March 3, Senate Democrats came together to block a GOP-led bill set up to ban transgender women and girls from school sports teams designated for female students.
Utilizing a filibuster, one of the last tools of check and balance available to block bills during Donald Trump’s second presidential term, the Democratic party was able to stall the legislation, with the votes being 51 to 45. Republicans would have needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and have the bill be brought up for consideration.
The bill in question, dubbed the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” was introduced by Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala) and split on a party-line vote from Republicans. Had it achieved the required number of votes, it would have stopped all federal funding from going to K-12 schools that allowed transgender students’ participation in women’s and girls’ athletic programs.
The Transgender community has been a leverage point for Trump and the GOP for many recent Republican campaigns, and the movement of the bill would have followed up on an executive order Trump signed in February, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
Democrats have continuously denounced the legislation as an effort by Republicans to gain political currency through denouncing the small but vulnerable population of transgender children and adolescents.
“What Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up a culture war and divide people against each other and distract people from what they’re actually doing,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii. He called the bill “totally irrelevant to 99.9 percent of all people across the country.”
Senate Democrats also argued that the legislation was not only an attack on basic human dignity, but also a waste of time. Of more than 500,000 athletes in the N.C.A.A., they noted, fewer than 10 identify as transgender. This fact was also brought up last December by the president of the sports organization, Charlie Baker, during a separate Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) also noted that the bill had no enforcement mechanism and “could subject women and girls to physical inspection by an adult if someone from an opposing team accused them of being transgender,” thereby hurting the people Republicans claim they want to protect.
“Sen. Tuberville is trying to churn the social wars about something that really doesn’t exist,” Sen. John Hickenlooper, (D-Colo.), said after he voted to block the bill. Hickenlooper has announced he will run for re-election in 2026 and, despite his vote, said he does not believe transgender women should be able to compete in women’s sports if the other women object.
Four senators didn’t vote: Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.; Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.; and Peter Welch, D-Vt.
Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order allows the current administration to cut funding for schools and organizations that don’t enforce the order, although it can be overturned by a legal action or a different presidential administration.