“This is not just about trophies for women,” Carson Steelman, of Heritage Action, tells AFN. “This is about women's civil rights."
According to a Politico story, Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) introduced the bill in January, and now nine GOP lawmakers have submitted a petition to discharge the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act that is still sitting in the House Education and Labor Committee.
The push is being led by Rep. Jim Banks, who needs 218 signatures to discharge the bill for a floor vote, Politico reported. At a GOP meeting this week, the meeting adjourned with 62 signatures.
The U.S. House is currently split with 221 Democrats and 209 Republicans, with several vacancies. That numerical advantage for Democrats makes it nearly impossible for the bill to reach the floor where Democrats would be forced to defend biological males competing -- and winning -- against female athletes as the midterm elections approach.
"Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle ought to create equal opportunities for women in education, including athletics," says Emilie Kao, an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney who is representing biological females in court fights to keep males out of their women-only sports.
"That was the purpose behind passing Title IX in 1972, and we have had several decades of women achieving in athletics and academics because of Title IX,” Kao says of the landmark legislation. “But now those achievements are being taken away by those lawmakers who support allowing males in female sports."
