Thune tees up Tuberville's bill to block transgender athletes from women’s sports

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Tuesday took the necessary procedural steps to place Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) bill blocking transgender athletes from women’s sports on the Senate calendar.

The step sets up a vote on Tuberville’s bill in the weeks ahead.

The legislation, dubbed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, would hold that under Title IX protections for female athletes that gender is "recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth."

It would ban recipients of federal funding from operating, sponsoring or facilitating athletic programs that permit a transgender female athlete to participate in a women’s sporting event.

Thune asked that the bill be placed on the calendar under Rule 14 but did not say when the Senate would vote on the legislation.

Tuberville said in a statement that the bill would fulfill President-elect Trump’s promise to keep transgender athletes out of women’s sports.

“President Trump ran on the issue of saving women’s sports and won in a landslide,” Tuberville said. “Seventy percent of Americans agree — men don’t belong in women’s sports or locker rooms.”

It is co-sponsored by a wide cross-section of the Senate GOP conference.