Senate Democrats block bill that would ban men from women’s sports

Senate Democrats joined together to block Republican-backed legislation that would have permanently banned biological men from participating in women’s sports at K–12 schools and colleges that receive federal funding.

The bill’s Republican backers needed at least seven Democrats to support a procedural vote on the legislation for it to advance to a final vote in the Senate but did not receive any. Although a majority of senators backed the legislation on a 51-45 vote, the proposal failed to reach the necessary three-fifths supermajority.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, introduced the bill, dubbed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025. A similar bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives in late January with two Democrats joining the Republican majority in support of it.

The bill would have amended Title IX — a 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination based on a person’s “sex.” It would have clarified that the word “sex” in Title IX’s section on athletics referred solely to a “person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” — not a person’s self-professed gender identity.

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