Federal Trans Sports Ban Down To The Wire: House Action Tuesday, Senate "Close"

The national ban on transgender sports is expected to come down to the wire in the Senate, and could lead to crackdowns on transgender people nationwide.

Photo by Yohan Marion on Unsplash

After Mike Johnson’s election as Speaker of the House, Republicans unveiled their top legislative priorities for 2025. Leading the list was a bill targeting transgender participation in sports—a measure so expansive it could impact everything from team sports to activities like dancing, darts, and even chess. On Tuesday, the House is set to take up the bill, with a Senate vote anticipated shortly thereafter. If enacted, the legislation would have immediate and far-reaching consequences: transgender individuals could be barred from participating in sports, forced to publicly out themselves, and face the erosion of legal recognition for their gender identity in broader aspects of U.S. law.

When asked about the bill’s prospects, sources familiar with the proceedings described the Senate vote as “close.” With a 60-vote threshold required, it remains unclear how many Democrats will support banning transgender participation in sports, but enough are considering doing so to bring the vote down to the wire. This vote will mark the first major direct congressional vote on transgender issues for many of the elected officials. Republicans appear poised to replicate a strategy that has driven the passage of hundreds of anti-trans laws and policies in recent years: begin with sports bans, normalize denying the legitimacy of transgender identities, and expand to restrictions in broader aspects of life.

Democrats have largely managed to sidestep taking direct, floor-wide votes on transgender issues post-election. During the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, an anti-trans provision barring the children of U.S. service members from receiving coverage for gender-affirming care was included in the final legislation. The bill passed with the support of 81 Democratic House members and was signed into law by President Biden, marking the first national anti-transgender law enacted in the modern wave of legislative attacks on transgender rights in the United States. While the transgender provision was just one small part of a broader budgetary bill—a strategy Republicans are likely to replicate in future fights—the precedent it sets is significant. A Senate vote to strip the provision was blocked by Democratic leadership, signaling that Democrats may be on the brink of conceding on transgender issues even in the one chamber where they currently hold enough power to offer meaningful protection.

The bill, set for a hearing on Tuesday, stipulates that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” It prohibits transgender female participation by barring “recipients of Federal financial assistance who operate, sponsor, or facilitate athletic programs or activities” from allowing “a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.” If passed, the legislation would result in the immediate outing and exclusion of transgender athletes in sports programs at schools and colleges across the United States. Moreover, it would mark the first instance in recent U.S. law where transgender individuals are explicitly defined as not legally belonging to the gender with which they identify, as recognized by their identification documents and court rulings.

While the bill is expected to impact sports that have become hot-button issues for conservatives, such as swimming and volleyball, it is also poised to have far-reaching—and perhaps intended—consequences for other areas of competition. The legislation prohibits athletic associations from making case-by-case judgments for competitive fairness and instead imposes a blanket ban on transgender participation. This sweeping approach means transgender individuals could be excluded from activities such as darts, billiards, dancing, disc golf, fishing, and other sports where claims of unfair advantage are tenuous at best. Even chess—recognized as a sport by multiple universities—could fall under the bill’s scope, echoing a recent move by FIDE, the international chess organization, to bar transgender women from women’s chess competitions. Notably, each of these sports has seen targeted attacks from Republicans in recent years.

Attacks on transgender participation in sports are part of a calculated strategy by far-right Christian conservatives to erode every aspect of transgender legal recognition. Far from being an endpoint, these bills are intended as a stepping stone for broader anti-transgender policies. Democrats capitulating by supporting such legislation will not mitigate these attacks—it will embolden them, establishing a dangerous precedent by denying transgender people legal recognition of their gender identity.

Terry Schilling, leader of the American Principles Project, openly outlined this strategy in a CNN interview, admitting that the focus on sports was never the true goal. “The women’s sports issue was really the beginning point in helping expose all this because what it did was, it got opponents of the LGBT movement comfortable with talking about transgender issues,” Schilling explained.

There is also no sign that selectively voting in sports bans is politically effective for elected leaders who decide to do so under the false pretense that it will save their jobs. In New Hampshire, one of the states where Democrats arguably capitulated the most on transgender rights—with 16 Democrats voting in favor of or “present” on a transgender sports ban, allowing it to pass—the Democratic candidate for governor lost, and Republicans gained several seats in both the House and Senate, and they have named forced outing of trans students as their next priority. Meanwhile, in Montana, where Democrats fought back fiercely against anti-trans legislation, they gained 10 seats in the House—their largest gain in the past 30 years.

With House action expected Tuesday and a Senate vote expected in coming weeks, those who wish to speak to their elected officials about the policy can call them using the address lookup tool provided by Datamade.