Global Courant 2023-04-27 02:38:42
A lone Democrat on Wednesday blocked the Senate from passing legislation that would prevent biological men from competing as transgender athletes on girls’ and women’s sports teams in schools and colleges.
The law protecting women and girls in sports passed the House last week without support from Democrats, and on Wednesday Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., stood on the Senate floor asking for unanimous consent to pass the bill quickly. in the Senate. Tuberville, who was head football coach at the University of Mississippi and Auburn University, said he started out as a girls’ basketball coach and saw firsthand the importance of Title IX in giving girls and women opportunities to play sports.
“Title IX was just beginning to be implemented when I took the job,” he said on the floor of the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funding, which is credited with broadly expanding sports programs for women. “I was there to see the incredible impact it had on young girls across this country. For the first time, the young women I coached had equal access to facilities, resources and competition.”
“I saw those hard-working athletes earn scholarships, start careers and become leaders in their own communities,” he said.
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(D-Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono on Wednesday blocked an effort by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., to quickly pass a bill protecting women’s sports from transgender athletes. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Bloomberg // Shawn Thew /EPA /Bloomberg)
He warned that the Biden administration’s support of allowing transgender girls and women to play alongside biological women is “a sledgehammer … to Title IX.”
“A few weeks ago, on Good Friday of all days, Joe Biden’s Department of Education issued a new rule that completely reinterpreted Title IX,” Tuberville said. “Biden’s rule says schools can’t ban boys from participating in women’s sports or they lose their funding.”
“That means teachers and coaches will have to start opening their girls’ and women’s teams, fields and locker rooms to biological men,” he said. “It’s unfair, it’s unsafe and it’s downright wrong. To be honest, it’s moronic.”
Under the bill passed last week, educational institutions receiving Title IX funding would not be allowed to allow biological male athletes “to participate in any athletic program or activity designed for women or girls.” It states that an athlete’s gender is determined only by their “reproductive biology and genetics at birth”.
But when Tuberville called on the Senate to pass the bill by a unanimous vote, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, objected on behalf of her party, saying the bill would prevent people from participating in sports “in accordance with their gender.” .
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Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., called on the Senate Wednesday to quickly pass a bill that would ban biological men from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, but it was blocked by Democrats. (Caroline Brehman/Pool via REUTERS)
“They continue to spread abusive lies about transgender girls dominating the sport,” Hirono said. “But what is true is that these bans are deeply hurtful to transgender girls, especially transgender girls of color, girls who are gender nonconforming and also cisgender girls.”
“This is not about supporting women and girls,” she added. “This is about power and control. My Republican colleagues are obsessed with controlling women’s bodies and our lives, as we see today.”
“We shouldn’t be banning anyone from playing sports. We need to fight the discrimination that all women and girls — trans, cis or otherwise — still face in athletics, in the classroom and in the workplace,” Hirono said. “For these reasons I object.”
That objection is a sign that Senate Democrats will never consider the bill and will not schedule it for debate in the Senate at all. Hirono’s argument echoed comments heard in the House debate, when Democrats accused Republicans of “bullying” transgender students by banning their participation in school sports.
But the Republicans say the Democrats are destroying women’s sports by allowing men to compete on their teams. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., said Democrats ignore obvious differences between men and women “in worship of their trans idols” and has said Congress must act to “save women’s sport” — arguments Tuberville echoed in the Senate.
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Hirono opposed the bill to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) ((AP photo/Julio Cortez))
“Men have 40 to 50 percent more upper body strength and 20 to 40 percent (greater) lower body strength. Putting them on the same field as women is dangerous,” Tuberville said of transgender female athletes.
“This is basic biology. But what did we see from the science party last week? Exactly zero House Democrats voted for this bill in the House,” he said. “Zero. The science party seems to have skipped biology class.”
Tuberville added that by his tally, 28 championships have been “taken from girls and women by biological men.”
While it is unlikely that Senate Democrats will consider the bill again, Tuberville said the call for unanimous passage of the House legislation will help Americans “figure out where the Senate Democrats stand.”
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“Americans don’t want the federal government footing the bill for policies that are a slap in the face to women who have worked so hard in the field of athletics,” he said. “It’s time to act before the situation gets worse.”
Pete Kasperowicz is a political editor at Fox News Digital.
