An amendment to the SAVE America Act banning biological males in women’s sports failed on the Senate floor.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s amendment to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act to ban transgender athletes from participating in female sports lost in a 49-41 party-line vote.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act prohibits school athletic programs from allowing those whose biological sex at birth is male to participate in women’s programs.
“For some reason, my Democrat colleagues do not want to protect girls and women in sports,” the Alabama Republican said. “It’s ludicrous.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the bill would’ve codified President Trump’s executive order so it would have the “force of law behind it.”
The February 2025 mandate, titled Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports, aims to prevent male-born athletes from competing in female sports at schools that receive federal funding. The executive order threatens to rescind all funds from educational programs that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”
“The guy couldn’t win in the guy’s category, so they claim to be female so they could take away that opportunity, so they can take away that trophy, so they can take away the scholarship from young women,” Ms. Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, said. “I think that is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”
The bill failed to be tacked onto the SAVE America Act, which, if passed, would enact stricter voter registration rules, requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote and providing ID when casting a ballot.
Largely due to pressure from Mr. Trump, who threatened not to sign any legislation until the bill is taken up for debate, Republicans began a talkathon on the Senate floor for the bill that is all but guaranteed not to pass.
