Protecting women’s sports will be a “priority” for House Republicans if they retake the lower chamber after the 2022 midterm elections, Fox News Digital has learned.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC), led by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., is attempting to bring the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act to the House floor via a discharge petition.
According to a senior Republican aide, “protecting women’s sports will be a priority of a Republican majority.”
A leadership aide also told Fox News Digital that Republican members consider the issue to be critical. Republican members are preparing to address the issue if the House changes hands in November, with RSC Chairman Jim Banks of Indiana telling Fox News Digital, “Americans overwhelmingly support allowing girls to compete on an equal playing field.”
“Women’s sports protection is a winning issue for House Republicans, and we are more united than ever around it,” Banks said. “For the sake of millions of female athletes, this bill must be included in our post-2022 agenda.”
Banks praised Steube’s leadership on the bill, thanking him, “Leader McCarthy and the more than one hundred House Republicans who signed the Republican Study Committee’s discharge petition.”
Steube told Fox News Digital that he initially filed an amendment to the Equality Act in the House Judiciary Committee, which he said “completely redefined what a woman is and didn’t keep the Title IX protections,” but it was defeated on a party-line vote.
Following the failure of the amendment, the Florida Republican filed a standalone bill and made a motion to recommit on the House floor.
“And there’s been a lot of attention paid to this issue because there are circumstances and examples all over the country where this is happening,” Steube said. “Women are losing scholarships on a daily basis.”
Steube cited the case of University of Virginia swimmer Emma Weyant, who finished second to transgender Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, noting that Weyant is from his district in Florida.
The Florida Republican said the bill would need “at least five” Democratic votes to pass the House before proceeding to the Senate, which is split 50-50.
“That’s the whole point,” Steube said. “Do you believe biological men should be able to compete in competitive athletic sports against biological women? And put everyone on the board of it.”
Steube believes the issue of transgender biological men competing in women’s sports will “show how far the left has gone with their very far left progressive policies that the majority of Americans do not support.”
The congressman also stated that his legislation is “clearly a bill that President Biden will not sign” and that he “would think that this administration would support, even if we were able to pass it through the House and Senate.”
“So I do believe this is going to be an issue for the next several years,” he added. Ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee, Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina, told Fox News Digital that political “arsonists on the far left will stop at nothing to decimate women’s sports – even if it means completely subjugating women and girls.”
“Republicans will be the ones to put an end to the left’s political attack on women. We cannot allow women’s sports to be used as a pawn in radical progressives’ campaign against a traditional, science-based understanding of sex and gender “The long-serving Republican maintained his position.
With only five Democrats needed to get out of a full House vote, Republicans will need the support of moderate blue members to pass the bill. However, even if the bill passes the House, it is unlikely to pass the divided Senate without support from the upper chamber.
That support is currently in short supply, as Democrats are already under pressure ahead of a difficult midterm election and will most likely not want to hand the GOP a victory.
