If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. That old adage has apparently been adopted by Pennsylvania’s Republican state legislators as they enter the 2025-26 legislative term.
Earlier this month, Republicans in the State Senate released a legislative memo announcing plans to reintroduce a previously failed bill, and seeking co-sponsors. The bill is titled the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which was originally introduced in the 2021-22 session, when both houses were controlled by Republicans. The bill would have prohibited trans athletes from participating in female school sports.
Unsurprisingly, the Republicans in Harrisburg passed the bill, but then-Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, vetoed it.
Notably, the current memo announcing the bill’s prospective reintroduction was signed by the entire delegation of Republican women senators.
The rationale given in the memo is a familiar one, right out of the GOP culture wars handbook. The memo says, in part, “It’s imperative that we protect the opportunity for female athletes to compete on the athletic field in a fair and equal manner. Allowing a biological male to compete on a women’s scholastic athletic team puts all women on the playing field at an automatic disadvantage.”
Philadelphia Democratic State Sen. Nikil Saval, an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, made his opinion of the impending reintroduction of the Save Women’s Sports Act clear. In a statement to PGN, he said, “All people have a right to feel safe and accepted in their communities, and all athletes, including transgender athletes, have a right to participate in athletic competition that is equitable and respectful to everyone. My constituents see the intention of this bill for what it is: an attempt to exclude and erase trans people from participation in public life. I’m committed to advocating for my constituents and for LGBTQ+ people throughout our commonwealth to have the full rights and freedoms that all of us deserve.”
Republicans in Pennsylvania’s state Senate seem ready to restrict transgender athletes from school sports, despite the current Assembly’s makeup likely providing higher hurdles than before, but which may provide a political wedge issue, depending on what polling you’re looking at.
The language of the bill would create a legal cause for individuals to sue K-12 schools, colleges and universities if they allow transgender girls and women to compete in female sports. Educational institutions in Pennsylvania would be prohibited from allowing individuals of the male sex to compete in sports designated for the female sex under a proposed policy that defines sex strictly as “based on reproductive biology and genetic makeup.” This definition disregards widely accepted medical and scientific understanding of sex and gender.
Students who believe they have suffered harm due to an alleged violation of this rule would be given explicit grounds for a civil suit.
LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have opposed similar measures in the past, viewing even the threat of such bills as an attempt to intimidate school administrators — often successfully — into not making any accommodations for transgender students for fear of a lawsuit.
Daye Pope, Director of Civic Engagement with TAKE, a local trans advocacy group, told PGN, “This is the same tired playbook of attacking vulnerable trans youth under the guise of caring about women’s sports. This law won’t be signed into law by Gov. [Josh] Shapiro even if it were to pass the many hurdles in the PA State Senate and PA State House. Why are these legislators wasting our time with these culture wars that violate Title IX instead of solving real issues facing Pennsylvania’s families?”