WASHINGTON — A group of Republican lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation they say will safeguard competitive fairness for female athletes by barring transgender women from participating in women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded institutions.
Dubbed the “Riley Gaines Act” after the former University of Kentucky swimmer who has become a prominent advocate on the issue, the measure was filed simultaneously in the House by Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., and in the Senate by Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., according to bill sponsors. The text amends Title IX — the 1972 civil-rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education — to make federal funding contingent on schools limiting women’s teams to athletes “whose sex is female, based solely on reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
“The intent of Title IX was to create opportunities for women, not to erase them,” Miller said at a Capitol news conference flanked by Gaines and roughly two dozen congressional co-sponsors. Gaines, who tied for fifth place with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA championships, told reporters she “refuses to be sidelined for speaking up about basic fairness.”
Backers say 26 House Republicans and seven GOP senators have signed on, positioning the bill as a companion to state-level restrictions enacted in 24 states over the past three years. The proposal largely mirrors language in the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which cleared the House last spring but stalled in the Senate.
Progressive and LGBTQ advocacy groups swiftly condemned the filing. “This bill is a direct attack on transgender youth that solves no real problem and violates both Title IX and basic civil rights,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, citing research showing scant evidence of systemic competitive advantage.
The measure faces long odds in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the White House signaled last year it would veto similar legislation. Education-policy analysts say the introduction nonetheless keeps pressure on the Biden administration, which is finalizing a separate rule that would allow, but not mandate, limited sex-specific eligibility criteria in scholastic sports.
Hearings are expected in the House Education and the Workforce Committee in the coming weeks. Even if the bill stalls, congressional aides say its language could resurface as a bargaining chip in next year’s appropriations cycle.