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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) says authorities to forestall transgender athletes from participating successful girls’ and women’s sports volition spell to the Senate level “early adjacent week,” perchance fast-tracking a measure connected an contented Republicans and President Trump made cardinal to their campaigns.
The Republican-led House approved Rep. Greg Steube’s (R-Fla.) Protection of Women and Girls successful Sports Act successful January with the assistance of two Texas Democrats. If the Senate, wherever Republicans besides person the majority, votes to walk the bill, it volition caput to Trump’s desk, wherever it is astir definite to beryllium signed into law.
“We’re going to enactment that connected the level aboriginal adjacent week,” Thune said Thursday, appearing connected the “Ruthless” podcast. “It’s an contented the House has voted on, and the president issued an enforcement order. What this would bash is codify the enforcement order.”
Trump’s Feb. 5 enforcement bid aims to barroom transgender athletes from competing successful girls’ and women’s sports nationwide and directs the Justice Department to instrumentality contiguous action, including enforcement actions, against schools and diversion associations that let trans student-athletes to enactment successful enactment with their sex identity.
Attorney General Pam Bondi warned officials successful Maine, California and Minnesota this week to comply with Trump’s order, and the Education Department opened respective investigations into states, schoolhouse districts and diversion associations that person refused to enforce the restrictions.
The measure earlier the Senate adjacent week seeks to amend Title IX, the national civilian rights instrumentality against enactment discrimination, to prohibit schools from allowing transgender students to vie successful diversion events “designated for women oregon girls.”
Similar to another Trump enforcement order, it defines enactment arsenic “based solely connected a person’s reproductive biology and genetics astatine birth.”
“It’s unfortunate that it’s thing that needs to beryllium codified, but we’re going to marque definite that the president’s EO endures implicit time,” Thune said Thursday, the aforesaid time helium scheduled a procedural vote connected the measure for Monday evening.
“My presumption is we’ll get a batch of resistance, obviously, from the Democrats,” helium added. “Clearly, determination are partisan issues successful our times and things that we woody with legislatively, which make benignant of the heavy governmental disagreement that we have, but this one, to me, it conscionable seems similar it’s communal sense.”
The question of whether to restrict oregon prohibition trans athletes from girls’ and women’s sports has been a politically fraught 1 for Democrats, who were near amazingly flat-footed by Republican run ads past rhythm asserting they supported “men” successful girls’ sports.
Some Democrats blamed the party’s November predetermination losses connected its enactment for transgender rights, though voters successful astir exit polls said issues related to the system and migration drove their determination astatine the ballot box.
A caller Pew Research Center survey recovered that Americans person grown much supportive of policies restricting transgender rights, including ones that necessitate athletes to vie connected sports teams that lucifer their commencement sex.
The fig of transgender students participating successful schoolhouse sports is unclear.
In September, the National Federation of State High School Associations, which does not study however galore student-athletes are transgender, said more than 8 cardinal students competed successful precocious schoolhouse sports past year. Karissa Niehoff, the organization’s CEO, told The Hill an openly trans jock has ne'er acceptable a nationalist record.
Charlie Baker, president of the NCAA, which barred transgender athletes from competing successful women’s assemblage sports pursuing Trump’s enforcement order, told a Senate sheet successful December that helium is alert of fewer than 10 transgender NCAA athletes.
Opponents of policies that forestall trans athletes from competing successful girls’ and women’s sports person said specified restrictions volition inevitably substance speculation astir whether pistillate athletes, transgender oregon not, look feminine capable to vie successful women’s sports without facing questions astir their gender.
“Although the authors of the authorities correspond themselves arsenic serving the interests of cisgender girls and women, this authorities does not code the longstanding barriers each girls and women person faced successful their pursuit of athletics,” much than 400 civilian rights groups, including Advocates for Trans Equality and the Human Rights Campaign, wrote past period in a missive to Congress.
“You tin beryllium astatine your table and motion a portion of insubstantial and marque trans people’s beingness acold much hard than indispensable but you volition NEVER erase america oregon our joy,” middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz, who is trans and nonbinary, wrote successful an Instagram communicative aft Trump signed the enforcement bid connected trans athletes.
