Connect with us

Politics

LGBTQ lawmakers, advocacy groups condemn GOP’s anti-trans sports ban

Several members raised their objections to the bill in speeches on the House floor.

Published

1 year ago

on

U.S. Capitol (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

LGBTQ and civil rights advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives denounced legislation passed on Tuesday by the Republican majority that would prohibit schools that receive federal education funding from allowing transgender students to participate in girls’ and women’s sports.

As the bill was brought to a vote, ultimately passing 218-206, Democrats slammed the measure in speeches on the House floor, statements from their congressional offices, and social media posts. Among them were the out LGBTQ leadership of the Congressional Equality Caucus and several allies who serve as vice-chairs.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress, did not participate in the floor debate.

“Republicans are moving a bill that would ban transgender students of all ages from participating in sports and put all female athletes at risk for harassment and abuse,” U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Equality Caucus, said in a video on X.

“This sports ban opens the door to subjecting all female students to secret investigations, intrusive demands for medical tests, or reviews of their private medical information,” he said. “This bill is so vaguely written that it could force any girl to undergo invasive medical exams to ‘prove’ that they are a girl.”

The congressman continued, “This bill isn’t about equity. It isn’t about fairness. It is a weaponization of the federal government against a small group of people at the expense of privacy rights for all students.”

“It does nothing to address the real inequities that female athletes face,” Takano said, “and instead overrides the authority of interscholastic and intercollegiate sports federations, as well as athletic organizations.”

Gay U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who chaired the caucus in the previous Congress and now serves as a co-chair, said “No bill is before us to lower costs for Americans, instead it is a political attempt to divide us as a nation, stigmatizing some kids so some adults can get MAGA merit badges.

“The Republican governor of Utah vetoed a similar piece of legislation after he shared that of the 75,000 students in high school sports in Utah, only four were trans, and only one a girl playing sports. But he also mentioned the very real 86% of trans kids reporting suicidality due to issues like adults stigmatizing kids for political gain.

“Instead, today, the proposed solution is in search of an actual problem. Suggests we somehow ban girls from sports with some sort of process to determine who is a girl. Does this mean hiring potential predators to peek at the private parts of kids in locker rooms?

“Now that sounds like an actual problem to me, creating a solution to a non-existent problem by creating a problem instead of lowering costs for Americans as a sign of an ineffective congressional majority at best, I urge a no vote, and I yield back.”

U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), a lesbian co-chair of the caucus who previously taught middle school history and social studies, delivered an impassioned floor speech, telling Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) “I rise in fierce opposition to this bill”:

“Trans Americans are not the problem. This obsession with monitoring kids’ genitals is absolutely the problem.

“Let’s be clear. This is about kids. My kids, your kids, all kids. All kids, even elementary school kids playing basketball. I’m a mom of two teens. I’m a former teacher. I know what kids are going through in school. They are already self-conscious about their bodies. They just want to be on the soccer field with their friends. They certainly do not want to be humiliated by members of Congress.

“So, come on, let’s talk about what enforcement looks like, because you guys, you don’t want to talk about it. We know there is only one logical conclusion to this. This is interrogation of young girls. About their bodies. This is asking people to show them what is underneath their underwear.”

“That is what we’re talking about. This is the logical conclusion for this bill. So, it’s vile. It’s twisted. They don’t want to talk about the details. It’s an absolute invasion of children’s privacy. Far from protecting anyone, it puts our children at risk. And actually, I urge colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject this government overreach.”

Gay caucus co-chair U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) voiced his opposition to the bill in a post on X.

Other out LGBTQ Democratic co-chairs of the caucus spoke out from the House floor on Tuesday.

An especially comprehensive floor speech came from U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), a caucus co-chair, who began her remarks by proclaiming that “the so-called Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” will “actually do the opposite and make sports more dangerous for women and girls.” The congresswoman said:

“This bill is a ‘one size fits all’ approach that would apply equally to every sport from K-12 schools to colleges. Currently schools, parents, and communities manage youth sports leagues and write rules about who can participate in different sports at different levels. Many states, schools, and athletic associations across the country have allowed equal participation for transgender athletes for years and it’s working just fine. 

“This legislation would revoke all federal funding from schools that include transgender students on girls’ and women’s sports teams. This is damaging and discriminatory to transgender students, who benefit, as all students do, from participating in school sports, and also damaging to the entire school that’s threatened because federal funding benefits all students.

“Keep in mind, colleagues, that as of last month, of the approximately 510,000 athletes who play at the NCAA level – 10 are transgender.  Not 10,000. Ten. Out of 510,000. 

“Transgender students — like all students — they deserve the same opportunity as their peers to learn teamwork, to find belonging, and to grow into well-rounded adults through sports. Childhood and adolescence are important times for growth and development, and sports help students form healthy habits and develop strong social and emotional skills. Sports provide meaningful opportunities for kids to feel confident in themselves and learn valuable life lessons about teamwork, leadership, and communication. Teams provide a place for kids to make friends and build relationships.

“Yet my colleagues across the aisle want to take these opportunities away from certain children; that’s discriminatory and it’s wrong.

“My colleagues are apparently so afraid of people who are different from them that they’ve manufactured false and dangerous presumptions based on outdated stereotypes about transgender people, especially transgender women and girls.

“Additionally, there is no way this so called “protection” bill could be enforced without opening the door to harassment and privacy violations. It opens the door to inspection, not protection, of women and girls in sports. Will students have to undergo exams to “prove” they’re a girl? We are already seeing examples of harassment and questioning of girls who may not conform to stereotypical feminine roles; will they be subject to demands for medical tests and private information? That’s intrusive, offensive, and unacceptable, especially from a party of limited government.

“I want to be very clear, there are real problems harming women and girls in sports, but transgender students are not why. Today, we should be working to solve the real, pervasive problems in athletics that deter women and girls from participating, including sexual harassment and assault, lack of equal resources, and pay inequality.

“We should be working on those issues, and also on the issues that improve the lives of the people we represent back home, like increasing access to affordable health care and housing, lowering costs for everyday Americans, and fighting the climate crisis.

“But instead, here we are again. We’ve seen this time and time again—Republicans fearmonger about the trans community to divert attention from the fact that they have no real solutions to help everyday Americans with the pressing problems they face.

“We must not discriminate against kids because of who they are. Transgender youth already face high hurdles, and research shows that this type of discriminatory policy is associated with declines in mental health and higher suicide risk among already threatened LGBTQI+ youth. We don’t need adults in Congress making things worse.

“As Republican Governor Spencer Cox from Utah said in his veto statement of a similar bill, “When in doubt, however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy, and compassion.”

“Republicans, who have voted consistently against the Violence Against Women Act, who have taken the rights of all women to have control over their own body, who as women are bleeding out in parking lots, now want to pretend today that they care about women,” U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), a vice-chair of the caucus, said in a floor speech.

She continued, “And why? To open up genital inspection on little girls across this country in the name of attacking trans girls. We have two words. Not today.”

These and other House Democrats began calling the legislation the “GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act” to highlight the risk that if it becomes law, the ban could lead to genital exams of minor student-athletes by adults and therefore might help facilitate child sexual abuse.

While the House Education Committee chair, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), said that birth certificates should be used to settle questions about students’ gender, the bill’s opponents said the absence of a workable enforcement mechanism leaves open a range of ways in which students’ bodies and privacy could be violated.

U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), for instance, who is also a vice-chair, noted in her floor speech that “We have already seen an investigation like this” into a student’s gender “at a high school in Utah, and unsurprisingly, they targeted someone who wasn’t trans.”

She was referring to a case in Utah in 2022 that was kicked off when the parents of athletes who placed second and third in in a state level competition suspected the winner might be trans and filed a complaint the Utah High School Activities Association. Records showed her sex was listed as female since kindergarten.

Advocacy groups

“Just five days after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed an anti-transgender sports ban in 2021, a cisgender girl faced brutal harassment from the sidelines at a lacrosse game simply because she had short hair,” the Human Rights Campaign wrote in a press release Tuesday that highlighted many of the same harms addressed by House Democrats who rose in objection to the bill.

“We all want sports to be fair, students to be safe, and young people to have the opportunity to participate alongside their peers,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement included in the release. “But this kind of blanket ban deprives kids of those things. This bill would expose young people to harassment and discrimination, emboldening people to question the gender of kids who don’t fit a narrow view of how they’re supposed to dress or look.

Robinson added, “It could even expose children to invasive, inappropriate questions and examinations. Participating in sports is about learning the values of teamwork, dedication, and perseverance. And for so many students, sports are about finding somewhere to belong.”

“We should want that for all kids – not partisan policies that make life harder for them,” she said.  

HRC also argued that excluding trans women and girls from competitive athletics, denying them the benefits to their physical and mental health that come with participating in sports, can cause tremendous harm since these students “face higher risk of anxiety, depression, and bullying” than their cisgender peers.

In Monday in advance of the debate and floor vote, 405 national and local civil rights, education, and gender justice organizations joined a letter issued on Monday by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights urging House lawmakers to reject the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.

“Although the authors of the legislation represent themselves as serving the interests of cisgender girls and women, this legislation does not address the longstanding barriers all girls and women have faced in their pursuit of athletics,” the letter reads, in part. “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.”

“We are fortunate that transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people are present in our community, and we fully embrace them as members of our community,” the signatories wrote. “As organizations that care deeply about ending sex-based discrimination and ensuring equal educational opportunities, we support laws and policies that protect transgender people from discrimination, including full and equal participation in sports, access to gender-affirming care, access to school facilities, and access to inclusive curriculum. We firmly believe that an attack on transgender youth is an attack on civil rights.”

Along with HRC, which is the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, other advocacy groups that signed the Leadership Conference’s letter also issued separate statements Tuesday following passage of the bill.

Among them was GLAAD, whose President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said “Legislators who voted today in favor of banning transgender girls from participating in school sports should be ashamed of themselves.”

“Right now, gun violence is the number one cause of death to American children, yet extremist lawmakers ignore this reality to push bills that further endanger and isolate LGBTQ youth who just want to be themselves and play with their friends.

“Legislators have an obligation to stand up for all, not just some, of their constituents. Allowing students to participate in sports is about equal opportunity, the ability to make friends and belong, and stay active, healthy and happy. Young transgender people should not have to watch lawmakers debate their basic humanity.

“Legislators must meet with transgender youth, their families, teammates, and coaches who would be harmed by this dangerous legislation; propose ways to protect all youth; and stop pushing anti-LGBTQ discrimination in a phony attempt to protect women and girls. Protect all kids and let them play.”

GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD Law) Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights Jennifer Levi said, “It’s disgraceful to see the new Congress make one of its first priorities a sweeping bill that would deny transgender kids of any age the opportunity to play school sports and strip from them the many educational benefits sports provide.”

“Thoughtful policies can successfully balance fairness and inclusion in sports at multiple levels of competition, as local school districts and sports associations have done for many years,” she said. “We appreciate those in Congress who voted against this extreme bill and hope the Senate will recognize that blanket bans imposed by politicians don’t serve athletes, students, or sport.”

Despite the 53-vote GOP majority in the Senate, Republicans will need seven Democrats to support the sports ban for the bill to pass, which is unlikely. Still, President-elect Donald Trump promised to intervene with executive action, which would likely mean directing the U.S. Department of Education to investigate schools that allow trans women and girls to compete in sports for violations of federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination.

He and the conservatives backing the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act believe athletes whose birth sex is female have actionable Title IX claims on the grounds that they are unfairly disadvantaged when competing against their transgender counterparts, even though the research on this question is mixed.

In a fundraising email, the LGBTQ Victory Fund denounced the effort by House Republicans to “rewrite Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions,” adding that “The author of this hateful bill” U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) “even went so far as to claim trans people and trans identities are made up, before launching into a transphobic rant!”

Speaking from the House floor on Tuesday, the GOP congressman said, “Our culture and civilization continue to be subject to the perverse lie that there are more than two genders or that men can be women and women can be men.”

Allison Scott, director of impact and innovation at the Campaign for Southern Equality, said: “The passage of HB28 by the U.S. House of Representatives is a cruel and unjust abuse of power that targets a very small number of young people who just want to play school sports with their friends.

“It’s appalling that one of the first priorities of this new Congress is to bully children with the weight of a federal law. I want to send a clear message to transgender young people and their families: No law can strip you of your inherent dignity and humanity, and we will never stop working alongside you and a huge community nationwide to ensure all people can live authentically and with joy.

“The Senate should do the right thing here, refuse to exclude and marginalize children, and reject this legislation.”

Related Topics:
Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Congress

McBride, other US lawmakers travel to Denmark

Trump’s demand for Greenland’s annexation overshadowed trip

Published

1 week ago

on

January 19, 2026

By

U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) is among the U.S. lawmakers who traveled to Denmark over the past weekend. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride is among the 11 members of Congress who traveled to Denmark over the past weekend amid President Donald Trump’s continued calls for the U.S. to take control of Greenland.

McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, traveled to Copenhagen, the Danish capital, with U.S. Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), and Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.). The lawmakers met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic MP Pipaluk Lynge, among others.

“I’m grateful to Sen. Coons for his leadership in bringing together a bipartisan, bicameral delegation to reaffirm our support in Congress for our NATO ally, Denmark,” said McBride in a press release that detailed the trip. “Delaware understands that our security and prosperity depend on strong partnerships rooted in mutual respect, sovereignty, and self-determination. At a time of growing global instability, this trip could not be more poignant.”

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark with a population of less than 60,000 people. Trump maintains the U.S. needs to control the mineral-rich island in the Arctic Ocean between Europe and North America because of national security.

The Associated Press notes thousands of people on Saturday in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, protested against Trump. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is among those who have criticized Trump over his suggestion the U.S. would impose tariffs against countries that do not support U.S. annexation of Greenland.  

A poll that Sermitsiaq, a Greenlandic newspaper, and Berlingske, a Danish newspaper, commissioned last January indicates 85 percent do not want Greenland to become part of the U.S. The pro-independence Demokraatit party won parliamentary elections that took place on March 12, 2025.

“At this critical juncture for our countries, our message was clear as members of Congress: we value the U.S.-Denmark partnership, the NATO alliance, and the right of Greenlanders to self-determination,” said McBride on Sunday in a Facebook post that contained pictures of her and her fellow lawmakers meeting with their Danish and Greenlandic counterparts.

Continue Reading

Congress

Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.

ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7

Published

2 weeks ago

on

January 14, 2026

By

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) speaks at the 'ICE Out for Good' rally in D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.

The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.

Good left behind her wife and three children.

(Video by Michael K. Lavers)

Continue Reading

Congress

Advocates say MTG bill threatens trans youth, families, and doctors

The “Protect Children’s Innocence” Act passed in the House

Published

1 month ago

on

December 19, 2025

By

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks at a press conference on Sept. 20 for her anti-trans legislation. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has a long history of targeting the transgender community as part of her political agenda. Now, after announcing her resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives, attempting to take away trans rights may be the last thing she does in her official capacity.

The proposed legislation, dubbed “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” is among the most extreme anti-trans measures to move through Congress. It would put doctors in jail for up to 10 years if they provide gender-affirming care to minors — including prescribing hormone replacement therapy to adolescents or puberty blockers to younger children. The bill also aims to halt gender-affirming surgeries for minors, though those procedures are rare.

Greene herself described the bill on X, saying if passed, “it would make it a Class C felony to trans a child under 18.”

According to KFF, a nonpartisan source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, 27 states have enacted policies limiting youth access to gender-affirming care. Roughly half of all trans youth ages 13–17 live in a state with such restrictions, and 24 states impose professional or legal penalties on health care practitioners who provide that care.

Greene has repeatedly introduced the bill since 2021, the year she entered Congress, but it failed to advance. Now, in exchange for her support for the National Defense Authorization Act, the legislation reached the House floor for the first time.

According to the 19th, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first trans member of Congress, rebuked Republicans on the Capitol steps Wednesday for advancing anti-trans legislation while allowing Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire — a move expected to raise health care costs for millions of Americans.

“They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population, instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s health care,” McBride said. “They are obsessed with trans people … they are consumed with this.”

Polling suggests the public largely opposes criminalizing gender-affirming care.

A recent survey by the Human Rights Campaign and Global Strategy Group found that 73 percent of voters in U.S. House battleground districts oppose laws that would jail doctors or parents for providing transition-related care. Additionally, 77 percent oppose forcing trans people off medically recommended medication. Nearly seven in 10 Americans said politicians are not informed enough to make decisions about medical care for trans youth.

The bill passed the House and now heads to the U.S. Senate for further consideration.

According to reporting by Erin Reed of Erin In The Morning, three Democrats — U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Don Davis of North Carolina — crossed party lines to vote in favor of the felony ban, joining 213 Republicans. A total of 207 Democrats voted against the bill, while three lawmakers from both parties abstained.

Advocates and lawmakers warned the bill is dangerous and unprecedented during a multi-organizational press call Tuesday. Leaders from the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project joined U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Dr. Kenneth Haller, and parents of trans youth to discuss the potential impact of restrictive policies like Greene’s — particularly in contrast to President Donald Trump’s leniency toward certain criminals, with more than 1,500 pardons issued this year.

“Our MAGA GOP government has pardoned drug traffickers. They’ve pardoned people who tried to overthrow the government on January 6, but now they want to put pediatricians and parents into a jail cell for caring for their kids,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “No one asked for Marjorie Taylor Greene or Dan Crenshaw or any politician to be in their doctor’s office, and they should mind their own business.”

Balint, co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, questioned why medical decisions are being made by lawmakers with no clinical expertise.

“Parents and doctors already have to worry about state laws banning care for their kids, and this bill would introduce the risk of federal criminal prosecution,” Balint said. “We’re talking about jail time. We’re talking about locking people up for basic medical care, care that is evidence-based, age-appropriate and life-saving.”

“These are decisions that should be made by doctors and parents and those kids that need this gender-affirming care, not certainly by Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

Haller, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at St. Louis University School of Medicine, described the legislation as rooted in ideology rather than medicine.

“It is not science, it is just blind ideology,” Haller said.

“The doctor tells you that as parents, as well as the doctor themselves, could be convicted of a felony and be sentenced up to 10 years in prison just for pursuing a course of action that will give your child their only chance for a happy and healthy future,” he added. “It is not in the state’s best interests, and certainly not in the interests of us, the citizens of this country, to interfere with medical decisions that people make about their own bodies and their own lives.”

Haller’s sentiment is echoed by doctors across the country.

The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest organization that represents doctors across the country in various parts of medicine has a longstanding support for gender-affirming care.

“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” their website reads.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, senior vice president of public engagement campaigns at the Trevor Project, agreed.

“In Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill [it] even goes so far as to criminalize and throw a parent in jail for this,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “Medical decisions should be between patients, families, and their doctors.”

Rachel Gonzalez, a parent of a transgender teen and LGBTQ advocate, said the bill would harm families trying to act in their children’s best interests.

“No politician should be in any doctor’s office or in our living room making private health care decisions — especially not Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Gonzalez said. “My daughter and no trans youth should ever be used as a political pawn.”

Other LGBTQ rights activists also condemned the legislation.

Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, called the bill “an abominable attack on the transgender community.”

“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s last-ditch effort to bring her 3-times failed bill to a vote is an abominable attack on the transgender community and further cements a Congressional career defined by hate and bigotry,” they said. “We are counting down the days until she’s off Capitol Hill — but as the bill goes to the floor this week, our leaders must stand up one last time to her BS and protect the safety of queer kids and medical providers. Full stop.”

Hack added that “healthcare is a right, not a privilege” in the U.S., and this attack on trans healthcare is an attack on queer rights altogether. 

“Marjorie Taylor Greene has no place in deciding what care is necessary,” Hack added. “This is another attempt to legislate trans and queer people out of existence while peddling an agenda rooted in pseudoscience and extremism.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, also denounced the legislation.

“This bill is the most extreme anti-transgender legislation to ever pass through the House of Representatives and a direct attack on the rights of parents to work with their children and their doctors to provide them with the medical care they need,” Takano said. “This bill is beyond cruel and its passage will forever be a stain on the institution of the United States Congress.”

The bill is unlikely to advance in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.

Continue Reading

Popular