(Today) House passes "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act": would ban men from women's sports

I agree and think that would be more fair (having transgirls compete if they never went through male puberty), but I do not want to encourage, incentivise, or normalize stopping kids from going through their natural puberty because that causes major health risks (including sterilization)

They continued to compete after failed tests because the rule (set by IOC) allowed them to compete. The fault was with IOC (and IBA for losing their jurisdiction over the corruption charges) and not with the individuals.

And if you think people care what type of DSD those two boxers have, then you are delusional. No, they believe those two do not belong to women's sports because "they are XY." They could not care less how masculine or feminine the boxers look, how much their bodies have been masculinized, or how much advantage they actually have. In their mind "XY=men" and therefore should not be included in women's sports, period.

So if a high school athlete fails the genetic test, but is reinstated because her DSD does not give unfair advantage, she will be lambasted by those "protectors of women." She will be vilified as a predator who is "muscling into" women's sports and stealing opportunities from women.

TD never went through male puberty, and she looks like a normal teenage girl. That did not stop the internet mob from demonizing her for "stealing a scholarship" from a "real girl." (The scholarship offer was later rescinded.) What makes you think it will be any different with an intersex person?

My God...You liberals prattle on endlessly over nonsense...

There's somewhere between 50 and 100 trans girls competing in high school out of 300,000 school-aged students that identify as transgender.

That means at least 99.97% already avoid competing in sports.

Ok so that shows that most trans people do just fine outside of sports. Shouldn't be a big issue then....

Great to hear. The longer dems keep going along with the far left loonies the longer the republicans will remain in complete control.

When you did your calculations, I hope you kept in mind that the vast majority of US high school students who identify as transgender nowadays are female.

A report from the CDC dated October 10, 2024 says:

In 2023, the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) assessed transgender identity in the United States for the first time. This report provides the first nationally representative estimates of transgender identity among U.S. high school students.

In 2023, 3.3% of U.S. high school students identified as transgender, and 2.2% identified as questioning if they were transgender (Table 2).

Approximately two thirds of transgender or questioning students reported female sex (64.2% and 64.3%, respectively).

cdc.gov

Disparities in School Connectedness, Unstable ...

CDCMMWR

This report describes experiences of violence, poor mental health, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, school connectedness, and unstable housing among high school students who identify as transgender.

Open link

A paper that analyzed the gender identity information provided on the standarardized Amercian college application known as the Common App in 2022 showed that only a tiny proportion - less than 6% - of the 26,300 high school students age 17 and 18 who chose to use trans, non-binary or another one of more than 130 other "non-normative" gender identity labels for themselves on their applications were males identifying in a binary, opposite-sex way by calling themselves transgender, trans, a trans girl, trans woman, trans female, trans femme, MtF, etc.

The vast majority of American high school students - 78% - who referred to themselves as transgender, trans, non-binary or by using other "non-cisgender" gender identity labels on their Common App college applications in 2022 were female.

A report published in 2022 - THE CHANGING NATURE OF GENDER IN THE 21ST CENTURY: How Trans and Nonbinary Students Applying to College Today Self-Identify - by Genny Beemyn, Ph.D. Trans Policy Clearinghouse Coordinator, Campus Pride Director, Stonewall Center, UMass Amherst, contains a lot of information about the label choices and sex of students who identify as trans, nonbinary and other today that I found eye-opening.

The Common App’s new question on gender identity gives students the options of identifying as female, male, nonbinary, or to add another gender, with a fill-in box provided.

Of the more than 1.22 million American high students who used the Common App when they applied to US colleges for Fall 2022 admission, 2.2% (more than 26,300 students) identified as trans, nonbinary or another gender.

The vast majority of these students - 83.3% - indicated a nonbinary or other gender identity. Most had been "assigned female at birth"

Students who used the fill-in box offered about 130 different gender identities. Many students used multiple GI labels.

After nonbinary, the most popular gender identity labels were genderfluid (41.5%), genderqueer (9.8%), trans man (9.0%), agender (8.4%), and demigirl (5.1%).

The least popular gender identities were trans woman (2.5%) and demiboy (1.4%).

Overall, about 56% of the students who completed the Common App reported that their legal sex was female, but among the students who chose “nonbinary” or “another gender,” it was 80% and nearly 83%, respectively.

1,568 students indicated their legal sex was male and their gender identity was binary trans (such as trans girl or trans woman)

2,769 students indicated their legal sex was female and their gender identity was binary trans (such as trans man, trans boy, trans guy)

21,653 students said they were nonbinary or another gender identity that isn't binary trans. 80% of the students who chose nonbinary and 83% who chose another gender identity label that wasn't either "nonbinary" or a binary trans one indicated their legal sex was female.

The fact that that the majority of students went by nonbinary and other assorted gender identity identity labels, and most of them were female, is in keeping with previous research from 2011 and 2019 showing that 87% of US college students identifying as nonbinary “had been assigned female at birth. “

I'm a democrat and I support this.

It doesn't have to be all hate bud.

Bear in mind over 50% of non-trans students participate in sports.

Far from taking over and dominating, being trans is probably the biggest predictor of non-participation.

Since this thread is about a federal bill pertaining specifically to school sports in the USA, I think it's best to keep the focus on the percentage of students who do organized school sports, rather than the percentage who participate in sports in all ways including occasionally and casually for recreation, fitness, fun, fresh air, socializing and just to pass the time.

I don't know the figures for studets in lower schools and middle schools in the USA. But students attending US high schools and colleges don't participate in school sports at anywhere near a rate of "over 50%" like you say.

Nationally, 34.6% of high school students participated in school sports in 2022-23.

Overall, fewer than 7% - about 1 in 13 - American students who participate in varsity school sports in HS go on to to play a varsity sport in college.

The percentage of students who play college sports at schools that are members of the NCAA is nowehere near 50%.

At highly selective American colleges with undergraduate enrollments exceeding 15,000 students, less than 5% of the total undergraduate student body particpates in NCAA sports. At mid-sized colleges, NCAA athletes represent somewhere between 7% and 20% of the total undergraduate enrollment.

Only at small, mostly liberal arts colleges in NCAA Division III like Williams will you find that 25% of the undergraduate student body participate/have participated in a NCAA sport.

Rates of participation in US high school sports varies enormously depending on students’ sex and the state they live in.

Overall, 38.8% of boys and 30.1% of girls attending US high schools participated in school sports in 2022-23.

Maine and Iowa are the only states where more than 50% of girls in high school did school sports. High school boys participated at rates equaling or greater than 50% in 14 states.

Allowing male students in the USA to use gender identity claims to join girls' and women's school sports teams and to compete in school sports contests meant for females - and to use girls' and women's locker rooms - is a great way to insure that female students in the US will continue participating in high school and college sports at rates much lower than male students. In fact, it's a surefire way to get female students who are already participating in girls' and women's school sports in the US to give up and bail out of school sports - and to get female students who are potential athletes to decide not to bother going out for girls' and women's school sports in the first place.

IMO one of the merits of the "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025" recently passed by Republicans in the US House of Representatives is that it prohibits US educational institutions that receive federal funds from allowing all and any male students to join girls' and women's school sports teams and participate in school sports contests meant for female students.

The House bill doesn't only apply to male students who say they have a trans gender identity or another "gender diverse" identity such as nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid. (In some states, the "gender identity inclusion" policies adopted in recent years are so lenient and kowtowing that students who say they have any one of a wide variety of gender identities are given unprecedented latitude and so much special consideration that they can join sports teams and compete in the sex category of their choosing.)

The 2025 House bill applies to ALL male students at US schools subject to Title IX across the board, regardless of their gender identities. It applies even to male students who don't have a gender identity - as well as to male students who find the whole concept of gender identity and gender identity primacy questionable and/or risible, and reject or totally oppose gender identity ideology.

By prohibiting all male students at US schools that get federal funds from girls' and women's school sports, the federal "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025" would resolve the a longstanding situation of unfairness in states like Massachusetts, where boys have been allowed to play in girls' high school sports for decades for reasons that have nothing to with gender identity.

Massachusetts has let boys play on girls’ sports teams since 1979 due to a landmark ruling by the state Supreme Court in a case the Attorney General of MA brought against the Massachusetts Interscholastisc Athletic Association (MIAA). The MA Attorney General had sued the MIAA on the grounds that it was unlawful for the MIAA not to allow boys play to on girls’ sports teams, especially when boys were attending schools that didn't offer an equivalent boys’ team or program in a particular sport that boys were interested in competing in. The MA AG said barring boys from girls' sports violated the state’s Equal Rights Amendment, which voters approved via referendum in 1976. In its 1979 ruling, the MA Supreme Judicial Court agreed with the state AG.

Since that ruling, MS and HS boys have competed and excelled in numerous girls’ school sports in Massachusetts, mostly field hockey, girls’ volleyball, girls’ gymnastics, and girls’ swimming - and occasionally in other sports, like girls’ soccer and softball.

However, the 1979 MA court ruling and the MIAA policy that issued from it contradict the federal government’s Title IX implementation regulations in place since 1975.

More on the situation in Massachusetts that the federal legislation would resolve:

On January 5, 2025, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association proposed a new set of rules for girls’ field hockey that were designed to level the playing field in the case of girls’ high school teams fielding male players.

Last year, two teenage boys - brothers Ben and Chris Menard - led the South Hadley HS field hockey team to a 20-0-1 record before eventually losing out , 2-1, in overtime in the semifinal round at the state championships.

Ben Menard set records by scoring 43 goals in the season, while his brother Chris scored another 16.

On another high school girls’ field hockey team in Massachusetts last year, nearly half the goals the team racked up the whole season were scored by a boy on the team.

A Lowell High School girls’ hockey player, sophomore Anthony Ford - who also plays boys’ varsity ice hockey at Lowell HS - singlehandedly scored 20 goals in girls' varsity field hockey in 2024. The rest of the players on the team, all female, scored a total of 25 goals altogether.

Ford won a place on the Merrimack Valley Conference all-conference team, and The Lowell Sun named him to its area all-star team too.

Ford wasn’t the only sophomore boy who made a big splash in Massachusetts girls’ high school field hockey last year.

Somerset-Berkley High sophomore Ryan Crook scored both goals in his team’s 2-1 MIAA Division II state championship game victory over Norwood in November. Crook was also the South Coast Conference’s Most Valuable Player for the 2024 season.

Crook’s older brother Lucas also helped Somerset-Berkley win girls’ field hockey state championships in 2018 and 2019; he scored the game-winning goal in overtime in the 2018 game.

Lucas Crook is also the leading scorer in Somerset-Berkley girls' field hockey history.

In another recent incident that generated headlines and highlighted the flaws with the MA policy, a boy on the Swampscott high school girls’ team fired a shot during a playoff game in the fall of 2023 that hit a female player on the Dighton-Rehoboth team in the face, leaving her “badly injured." The female player sustained “significant facial and dental injuries” requiring hospitalization in the immediate aftermath and a series of reconstructive surgeries and procedures in the enusing days, weeks and months. Due to the injuries and medical interventions they necessitated, the female player’s time in school sports is over for good.

After the female student was badly injured by a boy on the field, the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School Committee instituted a new rule allowing school sports teams in the district to forfeit a game in order to avoid facing off against a player of the opposite sex on an opposing team. Last fall, the high school girls' hockey team elected to take advantage of the new rule for the first time by refusing to take the field agaisnt Somerset-Berkley so the female players wouldn't have to go up against the team's dominant male player, Ryan Crook.

Under the new rule changes proposed by the MIAA, girls’ field hockey teams would only be allowed to field two boys at a time during regulation play and they would be precluded from playing the ball anywhere in the striking circle.

During overtime when the game goes to 7 vs. 7, only one boy would be allowed to play at a time.

The proposed new MIAA rules would mean male players in girls' field hockey would not be able to play goalie or attack the net from the scoring arc or end lines, which would reduce the physical contact the girls are forced to endure in those high traffic areas.

“We’re looking at competitive fairness on the field,” Patricia Ruggiero, MIAA Field Hockey Committee Chair, said, “then maybe this will evolve into something more down the line.”

Ruggiero said that a rule change was necessary because high school boys are bigger and stronger than their female counterparts of the same age.

However, some school sports officials at MIAA member schools that would be affected say the move is too drastic.

Tad Desautels, athletic director at South Hadley high, which had huge success fielding the brothers Ben and Chris Menard in girls’ field hockey last season, said he’s “all for limiting the amount of boys on the field at one time.” But he said the proposed rules go too far because they bar boys from inside the circle and would end up the limiting the amount of time his male players can be on the field overall.

The MIAA proposal will undergo a vote in an upcoming meeting.

Past MIAA proposals to impose restrictions on boys playing in girls’ high school sports in MA have been given the thumbs down by the voting membership. Other times, the MIAA passed different rules designed to discourage boys from playing in girls’ sports in MA, but those moves led to the MIAA being taken to court on five separate occasions. The MIAA lost each time.

But there are only 10 transgender athletes competing in the NCAA and zero in swimming and T&F. During 2024, there was only 1 athlete, Blair Fleming, that was good enough to receive any attention and she is out of eligibility.

Umm... ever heard of Sadie Schreiner?

Are you on meth? Every reply is an endless screed.

But NCAA sports are just one part of the overall picture. NCAA sports are the smallest and least important part of the picture too. Because the numbers and percentage of students in the US who participate in NCAA sports in college are just a fraction of the numbers and percentage of students who participate in school sports in the US overall. Most students who participate in school sports in the USA do so in HS, MS and LS.

The federal bill that this thread is about - the "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025" - says US educational institutions and programs that receive federal funds at all levels - high school, middle school, lower school, Head Start - cannot allow male students to join school sports teams designated as girls' and women's teams or allow male students to compete in school sports contests meant for female students.

Moreover, as I've made clear in several posts, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 doesn't only apply to male students who say they have a trans gender identity.

The bill requires all US schools and programs that are subject to Title IX from Head Start, nursery school and K-1 through college/university and grad schools to bar ALL MALE STUDENTS from joining girls' and women's school sports teams and from competing in school sports contests meant for female students for any reason.

The bill is aimed at barring ALL male students attending US schools that get federal funds from participating in the female category of school sports regardless of male students' gender identities and claimed gender identities.

The bill would do away with the custom of allowing males to compete and clean up in girls' and women's school sports in the US for reasons that have nothing at all to do with gender identity - such as the state law, policies and court rulings in Massachusetts that I've detailed above.

The federal Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 doesn't mention gender identity at all, not even once. The bill is about sex. Its purpose is to insure that with the exception of the tiny number of males with extremely rare DSDs such as CAIS, male students at US schools subject to Title IX will not be given the chance to join girls' and women's school sports teams any more and male students will no longer be allowed to compete in school sports that were created and meant to be for female students. The bill is silent on, blind to, and neutral about gender identity.

This is true about transgender girls.

Trans boys participate in sports by far greater rate than trans girls, although still at a lower rate than cis boys.

You are the one who brought up the fact that most college students do not participate in varsity sports, regardless of gender.

This is after another poster pointed out that trans girls in high school participate in school at an extremely low rate. Their participation rate is well under 1%, compared to 30+% for cis girls.

BTW. here are the ten states with the largest participation gap between boys and girls at age 6-17.

Nebraska, Tennessee, South Carolina, Utah, Nevada, Arkansas, Colorado, Mississippi, DC, North Carolina.

Looks like most of them are not liberal states that allow trans girls in girls' sports.

projectplay.org

Participation Trends - State of Play 2023 - Project Play

Data from parent surveys on youth sports participation.

Open link