The U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 14 voted 218-206 to pass a bill that would ban transgender students from competing in girls’ and women’s sports in elementary school through college.

Fiery exchanges erupted on the House floor, with conservatives in many cases using anti-trans language and Democrats, including several openly LGBTQ members, arguing that the bill is harmful to children, discriminatory, and unnecessary.

The decision by House Republican leadership to bring the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act to the floor on just the second week in which the 119th Congress is in session signals the majority’s appetite for legislation targeting trans rights and the extent to which the issue will remain a major focus and priority for conservative leadership in the Capitol and, beginning next week, in the White House.

All Republicans who were present voted in favor of the bill, while all Democrats voted no — with the exception of two members representing swing districts in Texas, U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez.

Cuellar opposed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act when it was introduced in 2023, explaining in a statement that he changed his position “based on the concerns and feedback he received from constituents.”

Gonzalez did not vote on the measure in 2023, but this year issued a statement explaining his support for the bill: “I believe that there should be rules to keep our sports fair and that boys should not play in girls sports,” the congressman said, using talking points that are popular among Republicans who often refer to trans women and girls as men and boys, whether for purposes of insulting them or because they refuse to acknowledge or choose to deny the existence of gender diverse people.

“Members of Congress must have the freedom to vote in a manner representative of their district,” Gonzalez said in his statement. “As Democrats, we should not be afraid to vote our district’s values because we’re afraid of Washington.”

During the 2024 campaign, Gonzalez’s Republican opponent ran negative ads about his support for gender-affirming health care for trans minors. The congressman told Spectrum News in 2023 that “I have never supported tax dollars paying for gender transition surgeries and never will.”

Despite the newly seated 53-vote GOP majority in the U.S. Senate, the bill could languish in the upper chamber as the 2023 iteration did under Democratic control.

Still, President-elect Donald Trump promised to effectuate a ban, which experts believe would likely involve directing the U.S. Department of Education to find any school in violation of federal Title IX rules, which prohibit sex-based discrimination, in cases where they allow trans women or girls to participate in competitive sports.

Trump and other conservatives argue that cisgender women and girls are biologically disadvantaged compared to trans women and girls, which yields unfair outcomes for athletes whose birth sex is female, though research on the question of physical performance is mixed.

Proponents of the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, who believe trans women and girls to be unfairly advantaged by their biology, argue that excluding them from sports is necessary to ensure fair outcomes in high-stakes competitions at the elite level, such as college athletic scholarships.

At the other end of the spectrum, the legislation contains a carveout that would theoretically allow for trans women and girls to participate in sports in limited circumstances: “Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a recipient from permitting males to train or practice with an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls so long as no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team or sport, opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, scholarship, admission to an educational institution, or any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletic program or activity.”

As the measure was debated on Tuesday, opponents accused their GOP colleagues of exploiting a culture war issue to “divert attention from the fact they have no real solutions to help everyday Americans,” as U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) put it.

Several Democrats — who argued that in the absence of an enforcement mechanism, adults might inspect students’ genitals to determine their gender, which could facilitate child sexual abuse — began calling the legislation “the GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act.” 

The House Education Committee chair, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), responded that birth certificates should be used to settle questions about students’ gender.

Opponents of the bill like U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), a lesbian and co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, contended that boundary-violating scrutiny of girls’ bodies is the “logical conclusion” of the measure.

Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.