HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania's state Senate on Tuesday approved a bill to ban transgender athletes from competing in women's and girls' sports at the collegiate and K-12 levels, although the Republican-penned bill is unlikely to get a vote in the state's Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
The bill passed, 32-18, with five Democrats crossing party lines to join with all 27 Republicans in voting ''yes.'' The vote marked the second time the GOP-controlled Senate has passed it. An earlier attempt, in concert with a Republican-controlled House, met then-Gov. Tom Wolf's veto pen in 2022.
This time, Senate Republicans are advancing the effort after President Donald Trump declared his intent to ''keep men out of women's sports.'' and made it a major campaign issue in last year's election, dividing Democrats on how to respond.
The bill applies to participation in girls' and women's sports that are sponsored by public schools, public universities and publicly chartered community colleges.
It also prohibits any sort of government agency or athletic association from investigating or punishing a school or higher education institution for maintaining separate sports teams for girls or women.
For well over an hour, Republicans and Democrats debated the bill, at times hotly. The sponsor, Sen. Judy Ward, a Republican from Blair County, said the bill would ''ensure all young women have a fair chance to compete in the sports they love.''
Ward said that since 2020 in Pennsylvania, 37 female athletes have lost first place and another 13 lost second or third place, although she didn't say from where she drew the statistics. Pennsylvania's governing body for high school sports, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, said it was aware of just one transgender student currently participating in sports.
Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, a Democrat from Allegheny County, called the bill discriminatory against transgender people, as well as ''unnecessary, unwarranted and unconstitutional in my mind."
