NWLC on House passage of bill excluding trans women from team sports

(WASHINGTON, DC) – The House voted today to pass H.R. 28, which would amend federal civil rights law, to prohibit trans and intersex women and girls from playing on women and girls sports teams. The Senate may vote on the companion bill amending Title IX to implement a blanket sports ban as early as next week. 

Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), issued the following statement in response to the vote:

“Today’s vote demonstrates how little some of our legislators care for women and girls and just how far they will go to hurt trans people. House extremists used the guise of caring about the safety of women to impose their dangerous, transphobic rhetoric to the detriment of all students. H.R. 28, the so-called Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, explicitly contradicts its name by promoting discrimination and failing to address actual discriminatory barriers that women and girls continue to face in schools and athletics.

“Women and girls are not protected by this bill – it does not make the sports they play more safe, it does not provide more resources for their sports, and it does not give them greater chances to play the sports they love. Instead, it only makes it more likely that women and girls will be targeted and punished based on someone else’s idea of what a woman or girl should look or act like. H.R. 28 will only lead to witch hunts and abuse, sweeping broadly to impact any one of us, including young girls, to harmful and invasive scrutiny.

“All students deserve to play sports alongside their peers. For the students and community harmed by this bill, for everyone watching the cruel and dehumanizing campaign to diminish transgender young people, we are advocating for you and not giving up on protecting your humanity.”

The National Women’s Law Center and Women’s Sports Foundation led a letter from 67 women’s and girls’ rights organizations opposing these bills.