The Republican will propose a resolution calling on the NCAA to ban all trans athletes from participating in women’s sports
FIRST ON FOX: Just one day after Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., won the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act passed in the House MP, he already plans to introduce a resolution to further address the issue of trans athletes in women’s sports.
Steube, along with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., will introduce a joint resolution calling for NCAA to disqualify all trans athletes who compete as women. It would also call for the NCAA to create new policies that would bar any future trans-identifying men from competing as women and encourage all of its member conferences to do the same, according to a draft bill obtained by Fox News 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 non-federally funded schools.
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Riley Gaines speaks at a news conference following the House vote on the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act at the U.S. Capitol on January 14, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Steube’s earlier bill states only that it is a violation of Title IX for federally funded educational programs or activities to conduct, sponsor, or facilitate athletic programs or activities that allow male individuals to participate in programs or activities that are intended for women or girls.
But this resolution could be extended to private institutions that compete in the NCAA. The issue of trans inclusion at the women’s college level has been a major 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 policy.
NCAA President Charlie Baker faced questions and criticism from Republican lawmakers over the policy during a December 17 congressional hearing. He repeatedly cited federal law and recent federal court rulings that made this possible.
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On President Biden’s first day in office, he issued an executive order allowing and protecting trans inclusion in women’s sports. And during a hearing in December, Baker mentioned “five lawsuits in the last 18 months” that allowed trans athletes to compete against biological women. However, there have been no rulings specifically directing the NCAA to allow trans athletes to compete against women or to share women’s locker rooms.
If Steube’s bill becomes law, Baker and the NCAA will be in charge of enforcing the new mandates, just as he claimed to enforce the previous ones under Biden.
One of the groups that lobbied hard 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 central mission throughout Biden’s tenure.
Current CWA legislative strategist and former NCAA athlete Macy Petty told Fox News Digital that she tried to deliver a letter on the matter to NCAA Board of Governors President Dr. Linda Livingstone, but she was rejected 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 primary facilitator of this discrimination. They have demonstrated an utter disregard for the safety and dignity of their female athletes that they govern,” Petty said.
The NCAA may soon have to respond to a new set of rules once the Trump administration begins.
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Rep. Greg Steube gives a TV interview outside the U.S. 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 landslide victory in November.
The issue became so prominent that the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports 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.
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