FIRST ON FOX: Just one day after Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., pushed the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act through the House of Representatives, he is already planning to introduce a resolution to further address the problem of trans athletes in women’s sport. .
Steube will introduce a joint resolution alongside Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that will 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 prohibit any future trans-identifying men from competing as women, and push all of its member conferences to do the same, according to a bill obtained by PK Press Club 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.
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Riley Gaines speaks during a press conference following the House vote on the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act at the U.S. Capitol, January 14, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Steube’s previous bill only provides that operating, sponsoring or facilitating sports programs or activities that allow male individuals to participate in programs or activities intended for women or girls constitutes a violation of Title IX. .
But this resolution could extend to private establishments that participate in the NCAA. The issue of trans inclusion at the women’s college level has been a dominant political issue under 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 through its current policies.
NCAA President Charlie Baker faced questions and criticism from Republican lawmakers regarding these policies during a Dec. 17 congressional hearing. He repeatedly cited federal law and recent federal court decisions that allowed it.
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On his first day in office, President Biden issued an executive order to allow and protect trans inclusion in women’s sports. And at the December hearing, Baker referenced “five lawsuits in the last 18 months” that allowed trans athletes to compete against biological women. However, no ruling has explicitly asked 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 responsible for enforcing the new mandates, just as he claimed to enforce the previous ones under Biden.
One of the groups that pushed for this resolution was Concerned Women for America (CWA), which has made the issue of trans athletes competing against women at the NCAA level a primary mission throughout Biden’s term.
Macy Petty, current CWA legislative strategist and former NCAA women’s athlete, told PK Press Club Digital that she attempted to deliver a letter on this issue to NCAA Board of Governors Chair Dr. Linda Livingstone , but that she had been fired and that Livingstone “didn’t even look at me”. the eye.”
“The NCAA continues to fail in its responsibility to protect female athletes and is the primary leader in facilitating this discrimination. It has shown complete disregard for the safety and dignity of the athletes it governs,” Petty said.
The NCAA may soon have to respond to a new set of rules once the Trump administration takes office.
Representative Greg Steube gives a television interview in front of the United States Capitol on April 23, 2020. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
President-elect Trump himself pledged to ban trans athletes in women’s sports during his 2024 campaign, and it became one of the key issues for him and other Republicans during their landslide victory in November .
The issue has become so important that the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act was the top 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 in Trump’s first year in office.
