Michigan Senate Vows To Not Take On Sports Ban After It Passes House

The bill passed the Michigan House nearly along party lines, but Senators tell EITM that they will not take up the bill.

Michigan Capitol Building // Corey Seeman // Creative Commons

On Thursday, the Michigan House of Representatives passed the first transgender sports ban in the state’s history, pushing through legislation after contentious hearings in the Government Operations Committee. The bills advanced to the House floor and passed largely along party lines, with just one Democrat breaking ranks to support the measures. But the effort is likely to stop there. Democratic senators tell Erin In The Morning they have no plans to take up the bill in the Senate, a move that would effectively kill the legislation—and with it, Michigan’s attempt to codify a ban on transgender participation in sports.

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks’ office said in statement to Erin In The Morning, "Our legislative agenda is long and attacking kids is not on it." The sentiment was shared by multiple other Senators in the Michigan State Senate who confirmed that the bills would not receive a hearing, essentially putting on ice attempts to ban transgender people from sports.

Earlier in the week, both bills received hearings in the House Government Operations Committee. The first, House Bill 4066, would ban any athlete from playing on a team that does not align with the sex listed on their original birth certificate—a deliberately rigid standard designed to bypass the fact that some birth certificates can be amended. The bill’s language would also affect intersex athletes and those whose original birth certificates contain clerical errors, a rare but documented occurrence. The second bill, House Bill 4496, would have granted individual schools the authority to ban transgender athletes but stopped short of imposing a statewide mandate. House Bill 4066 passed 58–46 along party lines, while House Bill 4496 passed 59–45, with one Democrat—Rep. Amos O’Neal of Saginaw—crossing the aisle to vote in favor.

During committee hearings for the bills, tensions flared when a Republican sponsor was challenged by a Democratic representative to “prove” that he was not transgender. The question immediately sparked outrage from Republican lawmakers, who decried it as inappropriate and offensive. But the Democrat shot back, pointing to the deeper hypocrisy at play: if such a question is too invasive for a legislative hearing, how could it possibly be appropriate to pose to a child in school?

Transgender sports bans like the Michigan bills often take a sweeping approach, allowing transgender individuals to 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 ban’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.

In sharp contrast to the Republican-led push for bans, Michigan has recently been a haven of protection for transgender residents. In 2023, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation expanding civil rights protections to include gender identity and sexual orientation, and the state moved to ban conversion therapy that same year. But since Republicans flipped the House in 2024, the playbook has become all too familiar: introduce culture war legislation, target trans people, and test the limits of what they can get away with. This week’s votes were a warning shot. But for now, Michigan Democrats—and Gov. Whitmer—are holding the line. And in a national landscape increasingly hostile to LGBTQ+ rights, that resistance matters more than ever.