What The Hell America!

Senate Democrats were unified on Monday in blocking a trans sports ban. The bill, which would have amended federal civil rights law to ban transgender girls from girls’ sports in federally-funded schools, was Democrats’ first test on whether they will fight anti-trans laws in a Republican-controlled Congress that has prioritized rolling back trans rights. 

That test could not come at a more crucial time for transgender Americans. About 20 federal anti-trans bills have been proposed or re-introduced in this new Congress, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. Democrats’ ability to block those bills depends on their use of the filibuster — which is how they derailed this legislation on trans athletes on Monday. Sixty votes are needed to end debate in the Senate, so Republicans would have needed some Democrats on board to break through a filibuster and pass the bill. 

No Senate Democrats broke ranks to support the bill, although two did not vote. This show of support is a significant moment for trans advocates, who watched as Democratic state lawmakers and a few congressional Democrats responded to President Donald Trump’s re-election by suggesting that their party had gone too far supporting trans rights. 

Caius Willingham, a senior policy analyst at Advocates for Trans Equality, credited Democrats’ unified vote on Monday to a concerted effort by LGBTQ+ advocacy groups over the past few months to get constituents in front of lawmakers, especially Democrats who feel vulnerable in their upcoming bids for re-election during the midterms. 

“We made sure that they heard from a constituent, that they talked to a trans person and heard firsthand from their constituents how S.9 would negatively impact them,” Willingham said, referring to the bill by its title in the Senate. “Those conversations are incredibly important, and they definitely moved the needle.” 

On the Senate floor and on social media, Democrats spoke out strongly against the legislation. They pointed out the means to enforcing it is unclear, that it could endanger both cisgender and transgender girls by exposing them to invasive questions about their identities, and that the number of known trans student-athletes in K-12 schools and colleges is quite small. 

“The small handful of trans athletes in PA in a political maelstrom deserve an ally and I am one,” Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said on X on Monday evening. “Depersonalized as ‘they/them’ in a political ad, but are just schoolchildren. Empty show votes or cruelty on social media aren’t part of a thoughtful, dignified solution.” 

Fetterman was referring to one of Trump’s multi-million dollar anti-trans campaign ads, launched last fall, that ended with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” The ad blasted Harris’ support for gender-affirming care for incarcerated trans people and the Biden administration’s efforts to protect trans student athletes. Shortly after Election Day, Fetterman described the ad as a powerful campaign tool. 

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, said on Monday that the proposed bill does not explain how it would be enforced — a similar conversation that played out on the House floor. In January, House Republicans skirted pointed questions from Democrats about how the bill would be enforced.

“The bill — which lacks a clear enforcement mechanism — could subject women and girls to physical inspection by an adult if someone from an opposing team accused them of being transgender,” Durbin said in a statement. “It infringes on the privacy of girls and women and is a dangerous use of the powers of government to target student athletes of all ages.”

The bill would make it a violation of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions, for schools to allow transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams, which would put those schools’ federal funding at risk. The law also defines sex based on “an individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” which would explicitly exclude transgender people from federal civil rights protections. 

Although President Trump has already signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding for schools that allow trans girls on girls’ teams, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican sponsor of the Senate bill, noted on Monday that that order could be reversed by a future president — and that some states, like Maine, have refused to follow the president’s order. He urged Democrats to join Republicans in supporting the bill, arguing that women’s rights are being sacrificed for the sake of transgender rights. 

“Are we going to sacrifice the rights of 50 percent of this country for the rights of a small few?” Tuberville said on the Senate floor on Monday. 

The Trump administration is expected to continue pushing against trans rights — and not just through policymaking. The list of the first lady’s guests for the president’s address to Congress on Tuesday includes the mother of a trans child who came out at school but not at home, which prompted a lawsuit from the family, and a former high school volleyball player who reportedly suffered a brain injury in a competition against a trans player.

Senate Democrats’ firewall against the bill comes after two House Democrats voted to support the bill in January. It also comes after Democrats in New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Texas took Trump’s win in November as a sign that their party needs to step away from defending trans rights, particularly equal access in school athletics, for fear of losing voters. 

“The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, told The New York Times in November. “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.”

Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat, told the Times in a separate post-election story that Democrats need to change how they discuss issues affecting trans people. 

“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” he said. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

Moulton later said in an MSNBC interview that although he views banning trans students from certain school sports as going too far, he believes that Democrats need to provide an alternative policy on this issue. He voted against the House bill to ban trans girls from school sports, as he did the last time that Republicans attempted to pass similar legislation in 2023. 

In New Jersey, Democratic state Sen. Paul Sarlo told a local PBS station that trans women should be banned from playing women’s sports. 

“It’s very simple. Males should not be participating in women’s sports, whether it’s at the rec level, the high school level, or the collegiate level,” he said. “I think if we just talked a little bit more straight up, and had a little more practical common sense, we could’ve done much better at the polls. Elections have consequences.” 

Louise Walpin, a longtime LGBTQ+ activist living in New Jersey, was outraged as she watched Sarlo make these comments. This is a man she knows well. She and her wife worked closely with Sarlo from 2009 to 2013 to change his views in support of marriage equality — and now, because of his comments about trans women, she questions whether Sarlo ever truly supported LGBTQ+ rights. 

Trans women belong in women’s spaces, Walpin said. As a 71-year-old cisgender lesbian, she views the attacks that trans people are facing as the same arguments that have been used against marriage equality and gay rights for decades. 

“I really see so many parallels happening now in the trans community. The lack of dignity, the lack of equality, aside from the lack of actual rights just to exist,” she said. When she and her wife fought for marriage equality, they were told they were harming children and the family unit, and destroying America. Trans people are being told the same thing now, she said, and in response, some elected representatives are abandoning Democratic values. 

To Willingham, Monday’s vote is a sign that the tide is turning. 

“I think Democrats are now acutely aware that this is not just about questions of concerns about safety in women’s athletics and opportunity. It’s very clear that this is part of the larger attack to remove trans people from public life, and Democrats are seeing that,” he said. “They’ve said, with this vote, ‘Not on our watch.’”