Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, each of Texas, have been the 2 lone Democrats to aspect with Republicans Tuesday to move laws meant to bar transgender athletes from competing in girls’s sports activities.
The Safety of Ladies and Ladies in Sports activities Act would amend Title IX — the federal civil rights regulation prohibiting intercourse discrimination in faculties and education schemes that obtain authorities funding — to ban faculties from permitting transgender feminine athletes to take part in athletic applications or actions “designated for women or girls.”
It defines intercourse as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
The invoice handed the Home Tuesday in a 218-206 vote, with Gonzalez and Cuellar becoming a member of all Republicans in help. Three Republicans and 6 Democrats didn’t vote, and one Democrat voted “present.”
“I imagine that there needs to be guidelines to maintain our sports activities honest and that boys mustn’t play in ladies sports activities,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “Members of Congress will need to have the liberty to vote in a fashion consultant of their district. As Democrats, we shouldn’t be afraid to vote our district’s values as a result of we’re afraid of Washington.”
Gonzalez instructed NOTUS forward of Tuesday’s vote that the Home invoice “is very broad” and he hopes the Senate, which is about to think about the invoice within the coming weeks, will add extra guardrails.
Gonzalez, who narrowly received reelection in November, was hit by his opponent, former Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas), on the marketing campaign path for supporting gender-affirming take care of transgender minors. An advert run by Flores’s marketing campaign claimed Gonzalez pushed “sex changes for kids.”
Responding to the advert, Gonzalez stated Flores was mendacity about his place.
“I have never supported tax dollars paying for gender transition surgeries and never will,” Gonzalez instructed Spectrum Information in October.
A spokesperson for Cuellar, who voted in opposition to the invoice in 2023, instructed The Hill he voted for the invoice this time round “primarily based on the issues and suggestions he acquired from constituents in his district.”
In an interview with Politico in November, Cuellar, who’s going through federal bribery fees, stated Democrats want a simpler communication technique on transgender rights.
“[Republicans] make those issues into ads and, part of that is, the Democrats set that up for them,” he stated. “Transgender, pro-choice, I understand that, but the problem is that Democrats sometimes underestimate or don’t read the general public, and if they think that those are the big issues for the general public in rural America or in South Texas, they’re reading the public wrong.”
Cuellar additionally broke from Home Democrats in 2023, when he voted for a Republican-backed protection invoice that may have restricted abortion entry and gender-affirming well being take care of transgender service members.
