US House passes bill protecting girls’ and women’s sports from males

Just eight days into the 119th Congress, the GOP-led House passed a bill promising protections for women and girls against biological males competing in female sports at schools.

The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 was approved on Tuesday 218-206, with the support of two Democrats. One Democrat member voted “present” and nine others from both parties failed to cast a vote.

The bill amends the Education Amendments of 1972 to clarify the meaning of “sex” as biological sex in Title IX protections. It follows the Biden administration’s attempt to redefine “sex” to include gender identity. 

“For the purposes of this subsection, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” said the text of the one-page bill. 

The law’s enforcement mechanism would specifically ban a recipient of federal financial assistance from allowing biological men to compete in women’s and girls’ sports. 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told reporters the bill’s passage was meant to “uphold the original meaning of Title IX and keep biological men out of women’s sports.” 

“This is a commitment that we have made because it comports with what is right and what is common sense,” Johnson added. “We know from Scripture and from nature that men are men and women are women, and men cannot become women. It’s sad that we have to say that it’s a matter of biology. It’s how we’re made.” 

The bill comes after a federal district judge struck down an executive order by President Joe Biden trying to redefine sex to include gender identity, as reported by The Lion.  

Under the Biden order, the Department of Education (DOE) has been advising schools that not allowing biological males who identify as transgender to compete against women and girls in sports would be a violation of Title IX. 

Biden’s actions follow up on advisories from the DOE known as “Dear Colleague” letters, sent in the waning days of the Obama administration that similarly tried to redefine the term “sex” in Title IX to mean gender identity.  

The latest bill would clarify any questions about the Congressional intent of the word “sex” in Title IX. 

Democrats have warned that if enacted, the law would require students to take exams to prove they’re a girl. 

“We’re already seeing examples of harassment and questioning of girls who may not conform to stereotypical feminine roles,” said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon. “Will they be subject to demands for medical tests, private information that’s intrusive, offensive and unacceptable?” 

But one former collegiate athlete and prominent supporter of the Republican-sponsored bill expressed anger that such legislation even needs to be passed. She dismissed Democrat concerns as “absurd.” 

“I believe that people turned out to the polls on Nov. 5 to reject absurdity,” Riley Gaines, a prominent opponent of the LGBTQ agenda, told reporters about the bill. “And that is entirely and thoroughly what the Democratic Party has become: Absurd. Whether it’s feeling like you have to refer to Latino individuals as Latinx, believing that men can become women, believing that men can breastfeed, believing that tampons belong in boys bathrooms, [the Democrats are] entirely and thoroughly absurd.”  

Gaines said that real violence is being done to women, like her – not just because competing in sports against males and losing titles and trophies to men is unfair to women. 

“This is the specifics behind watching a man steal a woman’s national title: The feelings of humiliation and violation, of having to strip down to nothing, fully unclothing yourself inches away from where a 6’4’’ man simultaneously fully exposed himself, stripping down to nothing, exposing his male genitalia, non-consensually,” she said of being forced to share a locker room with a transgender athlete. 

That type of behavior used to be considered deviant, she added.  

“We used to properly label that as some form of voyeurism or sexual harassment, indecent exposure. Now it’s seemingly celebrated” by Democrats. 

Passage of the bill is not a slam dunk as it moves to the Senate.  

The GOP has a 3-seat majority in the Senate, but Republicans need 60 seats to guarantee against a Senate filibuster that could hold up a floor vote. 

Some Democrats, however, may want to split the difference and allow the bill to go to the floor, while voting against passage.   

Going into the 2026 Senate campaign, a handful of Democrat Senate seats look vulnerable in states where Trump scored well, including Michigan and Georgia.  

With the court already killing the Biden executive order redefining Title IX to include gender identity, some in the Senate may feel it’s not worth a fight keeping the bill from a floor vote.