Pennsylvania: Five Democratic Senators Defect for Anti-Trans Sports Ban

The bill is unlikely to become a law, but the partisan fray has some Pennsylvanians worried.

Pennsylvania Capitol // Cicku // Wikimedia Commons

On Tuesday, May 6, five Democrats in the Pennsylvania State Senate crossed party lines to vote for an anti-trans bill that would functionally single out trans women athletes, utilize unscientific definitions of “sex,” and erase intersex people in sports. The bill is unlikely to become a law, given the (slim) Democratic control of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives and the fact Governor Josh Shapiro has publicly said he would veto anti-LGBTQ bills should they come across his desk. But the partisan fray has some in the precarious swing state on edge.

The Democrat defectors include Senator Lisa M. Boscola (D-18), Senator Marty Flynn (D-22), Senator James Andrew Malone (D-36), Senator Nick Miller (D-14), and Senator Christine M. Tartaglione (D-2). All of the other 18 Democrats in the Senate voted against Senate Bill 9, while all the Republicans voted in favor.

Several of the Democrats who voted for the bill sit at the helm of party leadership. Tartaglione is Pennsylvania’s minority party whip and Miller is the minority policy committee chairman. This kind of break of party leaders from the rank-and-file is historically atypical—but increasingly occurring where trans rights are involved. Similar splits have transpired in Michigan and New Hampshire. And California Governor Gavin Newsom platformed anti-trans extremist Charlie Kirk on his podcast, This is Gavin Newsom.

“It is always disappointing when any elected official regardless of party chooses to focus on bullying a small group of people who are just trying to live their lives,” said Representative Jessica Benham (D-36), a Democrat who serves as the co-chair of the Pennsylvania legislature’s LGBTQ Equality caucus. She told Erin in the Morning via email that state Democrats won’t let the bill become law, and assured trans Pennsylvanians that the state party’s support for trans rights was unwavering. “This Senate bill will die at the House’s door,” she said.

Dr. Tyler Titus—the Vice President of Erie City Council—said these fractures are a microcosm of a national trend. Titus has served in multiple capacities as an elected official, and is the first openly trans person to hold public office in the state.

“Within the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, there’s a growing tension between those who understand what’s at stake for trans people and those who are trying to avoid political backlash,” they told Erin in the Morning. “The problem is that centering political convenience over people’s lives never ends well.”

Titus, who also works in the mental health field as an LPC, said bills like this don’t just affect athletes. “They send a message to every trans kid that their identity is up for debate,” Titus said.

SB 9 was introduced by State Senator Judy Ward, a Republican who, in December, announced that she would seek to eradicate gender-affirming health care for trans minors in Pennsylvania. These bills have yet to materialize, but anti-trans activists and politicians nationwide have used the manufactured “crisis” of trans athletes as a red herring disguised as “fairness” to get some Democrats to cede ground.

Pundits have also speculated about the extent to which trans rights issues may play in swinging votes, but the SB 9 hearings may speak to something deeper than optics and polling. The defectors were generally in “safe” districts. Tartaglione ran unopposed in the last election. Sen. Boscola and Sen. Flynn both won by about 20 points in their respective districts. Sen. Miller won by about 13 points. Only Sen. Malone won by a narrow margin.

If passed into law, SB 9 would mandate public schools—both K-12 and collegiate—segregate sports by sex. They may have male, female, and coed sports, but only trans women are explicitly banned from women’s sports. There is no such ban on trans men competing in the men’s division, and intersex people are completely erased through the strictly binary language: only “male or female” are recognized sexes

The bill defines “sex” as a category based on one’s “anatomy” and “genetics” at birth. It is extremely rare that a newborn baby would undergo any kind of “genetic” testing before their birth certificate is issued. And you do not have to be a doctor or medical professional to decide what sex to put on a child’s birth certificate.

Finally, SB 9 emboldens anti-trans vitriol while declawing civil rights protections. SB 9 states that a school or government agency cannot be sued for investigating or taking action against children they presume to be trans.

LancasterOnline’s Jordan Wilkie reported that, during floor debates on the bill, Sen. Boscola said the trans athlete debates would not stop until the lawmaking body “creates a policy that works for all involved.” Wilkie reports that she “suggested creating a third category of competition that would allow athletes of any gender identity to compete against each other.”

But Boscola’s proposal glosses over the further-reaching and more consequential aspects of these kinds of bills. As anti-trans actors have openly espoused, excluding trans athletes is not the goal; it is a means to an end, a proverbial foot in the door leading to the erasure of trans people from all areas of public life. These kinds of exclusionary sports bans open up the floodgates to invasive, arbitrary sex testing; fuel public speculation and ridicule over young people’s bodies; and rely on false data about the prevalence of trans athletes.

The characterization SB 9 as a middle-of-the-road stance has been widely denounced.

“This bill is a thinly veiled attempt to legislate bigotry,” said Liz Bradbury, Board President of Keystone Equality, in a statement sent to Erin in the Morning. “The bill flies in the face of previously established medical guidance, public consensus on equality, and the lived experiences of transgender and nonbinary individuals and families across Pennsylvania.”

Titus echoed similar sentiments. “Framing exclusion as compromise is just discrimination with better PR,” they said.