FIRST ON FOX: Just one day after rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., got the Women and Girls in Sports Protection Act passed in the House of Representatives, he already plans to introduce a resolution to further address the issue of trans athletes in women’s sports.
Steube will introduce a joint resolution with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that would call on the NCAA to revoke the eligibility of all trans athletes who compete as women. It would also call on the NCAA to create new policies that would ban future trans-identifying men from competing as women, and push all of their member conferences to do the same, according to a draft of the legislation obtained by Pakinomist Digital.
Unlike the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act, this resolution would directly address the issue of trans inclusion at the college level and would also affect schools that are not federally funded.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON Pakinomist
Riley Gaines speaks at a news conference following the House of Representatives vote on the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act in the U.S. Capitol on January 14, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Steube’s previous bill only provides that it is a violation of Title IX for federally funded educational programs or activities to operate, sponsor, or facilitate athletic programs or activities that allow individuals of the male gender to participate in programs or activities intended for women or girls.
But this decision can be extended to private institutions that compete in the NCAA. The issue of trans inclusion at the women’s college level has been a mainstream political issue during the Biden administration, highlighted by controversies involving trans swimmer Lia Thomas in 2022 and trans volleyball player Blaire Fleming in 2024.
The NCAA has enabled and protected trans athletes in women’s sports with its current policies.
NCAA President Charlie Baker faced questions and criticism from Republican lawmakers for those policies during a Dec. 17 congressional hearing. He repeatedly cited federal law and recent federal court decisions that have made it possible.
HOW TRANSGENDERISM IN SPORTS SHIFTED THE 2024 ELECTION AND IGNITED A NATIONAL COUNTERCULTURE
On President Biden’s first day in office, he issued an executive order to allow and protect trans inclusion in women’s sports. And during December’s hearing, Baker referred to “five lawsuits in the last 18 months” that have allowed trans athletes to compete against biological women. However, there have been no rulings that have expressly instructed the NCAA to allow trans athletes to compete against women or share women’s locker rooms.
If Steube’s bill becomes law, Baker and the NCAA will be tasked with enforcing the new mandates, just as he claimed to enforce the previous ones under Biden.
One of the groups that lobbied heavily for this decision was Concerned Women for America (CWA), which has raised the issue of trans athletes competing against women at the NCAA level as a core mission throughout Biden’s tenure.
Current CWA legislative strategist and former NCAA women’s athlete Macy Petty told Pakinomist Digital that she attempted to deliver a letter on this issue to NCAA Chairman Dr. Linda Livingstone, but was dismissed and that Livingstone “didn’t even look me in the eye.”
“The NCAA continues to fail in its responsibility to protect female athletes and is the leading facilitator of this discrimination. They have demonstrated a complete disregard for the safety and dignity of their athletes they manage,” Petty said.
The NCAA may soon have to respond to a new set of rules when the Trump administration begins.
Rep. Greg Steube does a television interview outside the US Capitol on April 23, 2020. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
President-elect Trump himself pledged to ban trans athletes from women’s sports as president during his 2024 campaign, and it became one of the key issues for him and other Republicans in their sweeping victory in November.
The issue became so prominent that the Women and Girls in Sports Protection Act was the first priority of the 119th Congress and passed the House with unanimous support from Republicans and even two Democrats.
With a Republican majority in the Senate as well, both of Steube’s proposals could be approved during Trump’s first year in office.
