House Passes a Transphobic Bill that Alters Title IX

After former President Biden’s attempt to enshrine protections against queer discrimination in Title IX failed, Republicans hit back hard with a new amendment to the legislature that restricts the definition of sex to one’s assigned sex at birth. The bill, HR28, was passed by the House last week and is now on its way to the Senate to be voted on. 

“The passage of HB28 by the U.S. House of Representatives is a cruel and unjust abuse of power that targets a very small number of young people who just want to play school sports with their friends,” says Allison Scott, Director of Impact and Innovation at the Campaign for Southern Equality. The press release from the organization condemns the restrictive and transphobic new bill, citing discussion in the House about young students’ safety, due to the possibility of students being subjected to invasive body examinations by adults to confirm their sex. The bill explicitly states that those assigned male at birth would not be eligible to participate in girls’ sports at school, and that any school which defies this rule would have its federal funding revoked. 

Biden’s version of Title IX that added protections for gender and sexual identities was rejected unceremoniously by U.S. District Court Judge Danny Reeves of Kentucky recently, and several courts had also rejected the addition of queer identities to Title IX throughout 2024. 

The new bill is not the first attack on trans girls and women participating in failed A slew of anti-trans bills have been worming their way into many bills introduced to Congress recently. HR28 passed the House narrowly in a 218-206 vote, with most Representatives voting along party lines. Two Democrats notably flipped, voting in support of the bill and therefore turning their backs on a vulnerable population usually supported by the blue party.

Trans people, specifically trans women in sports, have been the subject of controversy and severe transphobia for a while now, and it unfortunately doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon, especially with the inauguration of incoming President Donald Trump taking place without incident on Monday. The fight for trans girls to be allowed to play sports is not over yet, but it will certainly take some significant effort, or maybe even a miracle, to stop this new and hateful bill from becoming the law of an increasingly oppressive land.