On Saturday, the Senate voted 49-41 along strict party lines to reject the amendment to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.
The measure required 60 votes to advance but failed to gain the necessary support, marking the fourth time Democrats have voted down identical protections.
The amendment, known as the Protection for Women and Girls in Sports Act, was sponsored by GOP Sens. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. It aims to prohibit federally funded schools and programs from allowing biological males, who identify as transgender women or girls, to compete in female sports categories.
Republicans introduced this amendment at the request of President Trump, who has prioritized the protection of women’s sports alongside the core goal of the SAVE America Act, which requires proof of citizenship and a photo ID to vote.
While speaking on the Senate floor, Tuberville criticized the ongoing obstruction by Democrats. “This is the fourth time that I’ve had this bill on the floor. I’ll continue to try until I’m gone,” Tuberville said. “Every time that we’ve voted on this, I have not got one single Democrat to vote for it.”
That includes the ‘moderate’ and ‘reasonable’ Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. And like the national voter ID bill also backed by Trump and Republicans via the SAVE America Act, barring biological males from female sports is supported by some 80 percent of the nation.
“How about the trophies and awards that are stolen from young girls and ladies that work all their life to win a game or a sport … and they lose to somebody that’s much more physical, bigger, stronger and faster?” Tuberville continued.
Earlier this year, the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court seemed likely to support two state laws that kept transgender athletes from joining girls’ and women’s sports teams.
The results of the cases in West Virginia and Idaho will affect the 25 other states that have similar laws and the athletes who play school and college sports across the country.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, a sophomore in high school from West Virginia, and Lindsay Hecox, a senior in college from Idaho, challenged the laws that say girls can only play on sports teams based on their “biological sex,” which is defined as the sex assigned to a person at birth.
During more than three hours of lively debate, the justices talked about issues like fairness, scientific uncertainty, and discrimination, and they seemed to be split along ideological lines.
The three liberal justices, who seemed to know what was going to happen, asked questions that suggested that even if the laws are constitutional in most cases, the two transgender athletes at the center of Tuesday’s arguments should be able to pursue their own challenges.
The justices said that letting a lower court look at their cases again would give the athletes a chance to show that they don’t have unfair competitive advantages, even if some transgender girls do.
The conservative justices stressed that federal law has long allowed boys and girls to have separate sports teams to make sure that competition is fair. They also worried that this would undermine the goals of Title IX, the civil rights law that has led to more women participating in sports.
The Trump administration has gone after the rights of transgender people in general and the ability of transgender athletes to compete in sports. In February, President Trump told agencies to stop giving federal money to schools that let transgender athletes play in girls’ and women’s sports.
The NCAA then said that transgender women would not be able to compete.
The Supreme Court has not yet officially looked at the legal issues that affect transgender athletes. But in June, the court upheld a Tennessee law that banned some medical treatments for transgender teens. Its opinion was split along ideological lines.
The decision was a big step back for transgender rights. In 2020, the court said that a federal civil rights law protected gay and transgender workers from discrimination at work.
