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The National Defense Authorization Act of 2025, which passed the Senate on Wednesday and is headed to President Donald Trump’s desk, includes provisions banning biological males from women’s sports at US military academies.
“The NDAA also permanently prohibits men from playing on women’s sports teams at all military academies,” reads a section of a Dec. 9 administration statement addressing the bill from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.
Trans athletes have been banned from competing in NCAA sports dating back to Feb. 6, when the NCAA updated its gender eligibility policy to comply with Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order.
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A federal appeals court also recently allowed it Pentagon to temporarily enforce its ban on transgender military service members.
The latest bill is one of the last remaining items that Congress will take up in 2025.
Lawmakers came together to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a roughly $901 billion package stuffed to the brim with defense policy that frees up funding for several of the Trump administration’s national defense priorities.
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The measure passed the upper chamber by a vote of 77-20. It’s a lengthy legislative exercise lawmakers undertake, and one that usually comes and goes with little fuss, given that Congress typically bookends the year with it.
Other provisions, like a demand for the Pentagon to release the unedited footage of boat attacks in the Caribbean in exchange for full funding of the Department of War travel fund, raised eyebrows but did not slow the package’s success.
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That provision comes as lawmakers demand more transparency in the Trump administration’s strikes against alleged drug boats, and in particular as they seek the release of the footage from a twin attack on a vessel on Sept. 2.
“This defense authorization bill, while not as much for defense as many of us would like, is a step in the right direction,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D.. “And I think the defense appropriations bill that we will hopefully vote on later this week is another example of the investment we must make to ensure that in a dangerous world we are prepared to defend the United States and American interests.”
