U.S. Reps. Barry Moore (AL-02) and Mo Brooks (AL-05) have signed on as original cosponsors of the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2021, authored by Rep. Gregory Steube (R-FL).
The bill would codify that for purposes of determining compliance with Title IX related to athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.
In practice, this would prevent transgender females — biological males who identify as females — from participating in female-only sports.
The bill was introduced after President Joe Biden signed an executive order to allow transgender females to utilize female restrooms and locker rooms in K-12 schools across America; the order would also allow transgender females to compete in female sports. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in any federally funded educational program or activity, and Biden is threatening to withhold funding from any jurisdiction that does not comply with his order.
In a statement, Brooks commented, “There are numerous examples of men pretending to be women in order to compete against and beat women in sports contests.”
“Take for example the biological male who easily won the 2019 NCAA Division II championship in women’s hurdles, beating his female opponents by more than a second. In 2017, a man set new masters powerlifting world records for women while competing at the World Masters Games in Auckland, New Zealand. Two boys won first and second place in Connecticut’s state championship titles in girls’ track events. This disturbing trend of males competing in female sports threatens to upend women’s sports completely,” the North Alabama congressman continued. “I won’t stand by and go along with this science denial nonsense.”
Brooks concluded, “Girls are being robbed of college scholarship opportunities and will be robbed of the virtues learned from fair play competition like perseverance, teamwork, and determination— let alone the victories they work hard to earn. Letting men compete in women’s sports isn’t progress, it is a major step backwards and it ought to stop. People should compete in sports according to their biological sex. Anyone who argues differently is a science denier, plain and simple.”
Steube last year, during the 116th Congress, introduced the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2020; the bill failed to advance from committee and was not cosponsored by any representatives from Alabama.
