Tuberville: Democrats’ Transgender Sports Move Prove They Learned Nothing From 2024

Democrats proved they learned nothing from the 2024 election by unanimously blocking a bill to keep biological men from playing women’s sports–countering the views of an overwhelming majority, according to Sen. Tommy Tuberville.

In a procedural vote Monday, Tuberville’s bill fell short of the 60-vote threshold to overcome a Senate filibuster, when 51 Republicans voted to bring the bill to the floor and 45 senators in the Democrat caucus voted against allowing a floor vote. 

“It failed yesterday. Not one Democrat supported it, and it’s unfortunate because I don’t think they learned anything from this last election,” Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, told The Daily Signal in an interview after a Senate luncheon on Tuesday. 

A January New York Times survey found that 79% of those polled said biological males who identify as women shouldn’t participate in girls and women’s sports. Tuberville said the issue can’t be underestimated in the 2024 election. 

“President Trump in the last three months of the campaign gained more votes from [the issue of] women’s sports than any other policy,” Tuberville said. “And so they [Senate Democrats] didn’t learn anything. But that’s fine. We’re going to save women’s sports somehow. But we’re not going to get any Democrat help. So hopefully we can get it done.”

Tuberville’s legislation would have amended Title IX, the women’s rights measure of 1972, to state that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The bill would have also pulled federal funding from institutions that “permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in early February that directs federal agencies to ensure entities receiving federal funding interpret Title IX according to biological sex, not the sex someone chooses to “identify” as.

Even Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., considered to be among the more moderate Democrats, followed the party line. He posted on X, “The small handful of trans athletes in PA in a political maelstrom deserve an ally and I am one.”

In a press conference Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., expressed disappointment that “Democrats did not even want to allow us the opportunity to debate this bill.”

“Almost 80% of the American people and a majority of Democrats don’t believe biological males should be competing against girls in sports,” Thune said. 

“The president took action with an executive order,” the majority leader added. “But we would have liked to debate this legislation and to have had an opportunity to codify it so that it doesn’t change when a new administration takes power.”

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., claimed the bill involved a “dangerous use of the powers of government to target children and their families.” 

“Imagine being the parent of a trans kid and telling your child they are not even allowed to play on the same sports team as their friends at school because a politician said they couldn’t,” Durbin argued on the Senate floor.

The post Tuberville: Democrats’ Transgender Sports Move Prove They Learned Nothing From 2024 appeared first on The Daily Signal.