Tommy Tuberville on why he’s pushing trans athlete ban bill: ‘There’s been an attack on women’

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is leading the charge for a national ban on trans athletes in college sports. 

Tuberville previously told Fox News Digital he will be re-introducing the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act to Congress after the new House rules package passed last week, which would punish schools financially if they allow trans athletes to compete against girls and women. 

For the Republican, who has been a longtime advocate for the bill, certain decisions that have been made over the last four years under the Biden administration are the driving force behind his urgency on this issue. 

“It’s just a shame what’s happened here over the last four years. It’s been an attack on gender, it’s been really an attack on women, all women,” Tuberville said during an interview on OutKick’s “Don’t @ Me With Dan Dakich.”

“They don’t like women,” he said. “They like everybody to think when they’re born, ‘you’re not a woman, you’re actually a man in women’s clothing.'” 

The Biden administration, alongside other Democrats, has taken sweeping actions over the last four years to enable trans athletes in women’s and girls’ sports. 

On Jan. 20, 2021, just hours after President Biden assumed office, he issued an executive order on “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” 

This order included a section that read, “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.” 

Biden issued a sweeping rule that clarified that Title IX’s ban on “sex” discrimination in schools covers discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation and “pregnancy or related conditions,” in April. The administration insisted the regulation does not address athletic eligibility. However, multiple experts presented evidence to Fox News Digital in June that it would ultimately put more biological men in women’s sports. 

Multiple states filed lawsuits and enacted their own laws to address this issue, and then the Supreme Court then voted 5-4 in August to reject an emergency request by the Biden administration to enforce its sweeping changes in those states. 

HOW TRANSGENDERISM IN SPORTS SHIFTED THE 2024 ELECTION AND IGNITED A NATIONAL COUNTERCULTURE

Democrats have proposed other federal legislation that would allow for more transgender inclusion in women’s sports. These include the Equality Act, which was proposed in 2019 and has seen revisions that “would force public schools to allow biologically male athletes who identify as transgender on girls’ sports teams.”

In March 2023, Democrats advocated for a transgender bill of rights, proposing a resolution “recognizing that it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop and implement a Transgender Bill of Rights.” The resolution specifically called for federal law to ensure that biological men can “participate in sports on teams and in programs that best align with their gender identity; [and] use school facilities that best align with their gender identity.”

Multiple national scandals erupted as a result of these laws, and other Democratic laws at the state level, in 2024 alone. The issue became one of the strongest attack points by the Trump campaign and other Republicans as they re-took control of the White House and both houses of Congress in November, as many Democrats have withdrawn from their past support for trans-inclusion amid insurmountable backlash. Biden’s department of education was even forced to withdraw a proposed rule that would outlaw states from banning trans inclusion in December. 

A national exit poll conducted by the Concerned Women for America legislative action committee found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of “Donald Trump’s opposition to transgender boys and men playing girls and women’s sports and of transgender boys and men using girls and women’s bathrooms,” as important to them. 

Additionally, 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was “very important.”

Now, Tuberville’s bill will be their first step toward making good on their election-season stance on the issue. 

The measure would maintain that Title IX treats gender as “recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” and does not adjust it to apply to gender identity. 

The bill would also ban federal funding from going toward athletic programs that allow biological men to participate in women’s and girls’ sports.  

The measure is co-sponsored by 23 Republican senators, including Sens. James Risch and Mike Crapo of Idaho, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Thom Tillis and Ted Budd of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., James Lankford, R-Okla., Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy of Montana, Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Mike Lee, R-Utah, John Kennedy, R-La., John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb.

New Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has already granted Tuberville’s bill the proper blessing to move forward, and a vote on the measure could come as soon as the end of the week. 

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