Bill to ban trans athletes from girls and womens sports teams fails to advance in Senate

Legislation that aimed to bar transgender women and girls nationwide from participating in school athletic competitions designated for female athletes failed to advance Monday night in a divided Senate as Democrats stood united against an issue that Republicans leveraged in last year’s elections.A test vote on the bill failed to gain the 60 votes needed to advance in the chamber as senators stuck to party lines in a 51-45 vote tally.The bill sought to determine Title IX protections “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The vote came as Republicans have homed in repeatedly on the social cause, casting it as an issue of ensuring athletic fairness for women and girls.President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month giving federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.Still, Republicans in Congress have set their sights on enshrining that policy into law by amending the 1972 Title IX law, which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.“Around the country we have seen men — biological men who identify as women — take up spaces and medals in athletics meant for actual women,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., adding, “This is a matter of fairness and equality.”The House had already passed similar legislation with only two Democrats in support, but the setback for the bill in the Senate showed the steep climb for any legislation that targets LGBTQ people.

Democrats slammed the bill as both a distraction from more pressing issues and a federal overreach into local school decisions.“What Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up a culture war and divide people against each other,” Sen.Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said in a...