The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday 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.

President Joe Biden will leave the White House next week after leading what advocates consider to be the most pro-LGBTQ administration in American history.

The past four years offer a wealth of evidence to support the claim, from the passage of legislation like the landmark Respect for Marriage Act to the promotion of LGBTQ rights abroad as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, impactful regulatory moves in areas like health equity for gay and trans communities, and the record-breaking number of gender and sexual minorities appointed to serve throughout the federal government and on the federal bench.

As demonstrated by the deeply personal reflections that he shared during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade in September, Biden is especially proud of his legacy on LGBTQ rights and believes that his record reflects the bedrock principles of justice, equality, and fairness that were inculcated by his father’s example and have motivated him throughout his career in public life.

For instance, during a trip to New York in June, where he delivered remarks to commemorate the opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, Biden explained he was deeply moved by the “physical and moral courage” of those early gay rights activists, adding that the monument honoring their sacrifices “sets an example” in the U.S. and around the world.

Likewise, Biden told the Blade he decided to publicly express his support for same-sex marriage in the midst of his reelection campaign with then-President Barack Obama in 2012 because of his experience attending an event hosted by a gay couple with their children present.

“If you saw these two kids with their fathers, you’d walk away saying, ‘wait a minute, they’re good parents,’” he said. From that moment forward, Biden was unwilling to continue to demur, even if that meant preempting Obama’s “evolution” toward embracing marriage equality.

To fully appreciate Biden’s leadership — especially during his presidency, and particularly on issues of transgender rights — it is worth considering his record against the backdrop of the broader political landscape over the past four years.

By the time he took office in 2021, conservative activists and elected leaders had positioned the trans community at the center of a moral panic, introducing hundreds of laws targeting their rights and protections and exploiting the issue as a strategy to undermine support for Democrats.

In the face of unrelenting attacks from his Republican political adversaries, Biden set to work building an administration that “looked like America” including with the appointment of trans physician and four-star officer Dr. Rachel Levine to serve as assistant health secretary, and on day one he issued an executive order repealing his predecessor’s policy that excluded trans Americans from military service.

As the 2024 election neared, with Donald Trump’s campaign weaponizing transphobia as a wedge to score votes, Biden’s support remained vocal and sustained. In each of his four State of the Union addresses to joint sessions of Congress, for example, the president reinforced his commitment to “have the trans community’s back.”

Meanwhile, midway through his term the U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion protections that were in place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, with conservative statehouses across the country taking the opportunity to pass draconian restrictions.

Democrats sought to exploit the unpopular abortion bans, especially as the presidential race was in full swing, but many were concerned that Biden might be an ineffective messenger because of his personal opposition to the practice as a devout Catholic.

While he directed his administration to take measures to protect access to abortion in the U.S. and spoke publicly about the importance of reproductive autonomy and the freedom to access necessary medical care for family planning, the Associated Press reports that as of March 2024, Biden had only used the word “abortion” in prepared remarks once in four years.

The daylight between how the president has talked about transgender rights and how he has talked about abortion offers an interesting contrast, perhaps illuminating how impervious Biden can be when pressured to compromise his values for the sake of realizing his political ambitions, while also demonstrating the sincerity of his conviction that, as he put it in 2012, anti-trans discrimination is “the civil rights issue of our time.”

Biden was scheduled to deliver a farewell address to the nation on Wednesday evening.

Far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) leveled the baseless and false accusation that U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) a “groomer” and “child predator” in a post on X Monday, responding to a video shared by the anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok in which the freshman congresswoman is seen reading to kids in a classroom.

According to the signage featured in the clip, McBride, who is the first transgender member of Congress, was participating in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s “Jazz and Friends National Day of School and Community Readings.”

The program is part of the organization’s Welcoming Schools initiative, which provides “trainings and resources for elementary school educators” to help “welcome diverse families, create LGBTQ and gender inclusive schools, prevent bias-based bullying, and support transgender and nonbinary students.”

Prior to her first election to the Delaware state legislature, McBride served as press secretary for HRC from 2016-2021.

Monday’s post was not the first time in which Greene has, without evidence, accused LGBTQ people and allies of child sexual abuse or grooming, often for their support of age-appropriate classroom instruction on matters of LGBTQ history, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

She is not alone. As culture wars over issues of sexual orientation and gender identity have intensified in recent years, conservatives have increasingly used false allegations of pedophilia, bringing back a smear that was historically used against gay, queer, and trans people but until recently was considered out of bounds in mainstream political discourse.

RAINN, a national anti-sexual violence group, has highlighted the ways in which these baseless allegations are harmful not just to LGBTQ people but also to children, because they can diminish the experience of survivors and steal the focus away from real cases of child sexual abuse.

After her election to Congress in November, Greene and other House Republicans like U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina began attacking McBride, personally — proposing rules to prohibit her from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol and deliberately dead-naming and misgendering her.

By contrast, McBride last week introduced bipartisan legislation with GOP U.S. Rep. Young Kim (Calif.) to protect consumers from fraudulent scams that offer false promises to repair poor credit scores, becoming the first first-year member to introduce a bill designed to help American families.

The Washington Blade has reached out to representatives from HRC, McBride’s office, and the Congressional Equality Caucus for comment on Greene’s post.