Ron Johnson Reintroduces Bill To Ban Transgender Athletes From School Sports
Legislation was blocked by Democratic U.S. Senate majority last year, but GOP now controls Legislative and Executive branches.
Sen. Ron Johnson speaks at the RNC on Monday, July 15, 2024, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has once again signed on to a Republican bill that would ban transgender students from competing on sports teams that don’t match their gender at birth.
Senate Democrats blocked the bill last year. But with Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups are preparing for a new fight in the battle over transgender rights.
In a statement, Johnson’s office said the bill is a response to Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration taking “a sledgehammer to Title IX.”
Johnson’s office said the Republican bill, introduced Tuesday, would treat students’ gender as “recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics and birth.” The legislation would also ban schools that receive federal funding from having sports programs “that permit a male to participate in a women’s sporting event.”
That refers to the U.S. Department of Education updating Title IX rules in April 2024 to include gender identity and sexual presentation in the definition of sex-based discrimination. The revision did not include language relating to student athletics.
The Biden administration did propose a rule change that would have allowed schools to limit transgender students from participating in school sports, while making across-the-board bans on transgender athletes a violation of Title IX. The proposed rule was scrapped Dec. 20.
Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment from WPR for this story.
Johnson and the 28 other Republican senators first introduced the bill in March 2023, but Democrats who held a Senate majority at the time referred it to a committee where the bill died at the end of the 118th Congress.
LGBTQ+ advocates say targeting of trans students is about politics, not protecting girls
Abigail Swetz is the executive director at LGBTQ+ advocacy group Fair Wisconsin. She told WPR Johnson’s bill and the political attack ads focusing on trans students weren’t about protecting women, but rather scoring political points.
“It’s politicians using a very small percentage of the population in a really gross game,” Swetz said. “And I just think that the idea of using someone’s desire to belong as a reason to force them to not belong is really dangerous.”
Brian Juchems is the senior director of policy and education at another GSAFE, another LGBTQ+ youth advocacy group. He said schools and the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association have already weighed in on the issue of transgender athletes.
“They’ve been dealing with this for years, and it seems like an example of Johnson wanting to have big government be very involved in local control issues,” Juchems said.
A striped transgender pride flag is on display as people watch a public hearing on Assembly Bill 465 from an overflow room Oct. 4, 2023, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. The bill would ban providing certain types of gender-affirming medical care to minors. Angela Major/WPR
Political battle leads to litigation, school board divisions
For years, the issue of transgender kids and student athletes has become a political lightning rod. It was a major focus of Republican campaign advertisements in presidential and congressional races leading up to the November election.
Since 2020, an ESPN review found 23 states have passed laws restricting transgender athletes from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
Last year, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill from Republican state lawmakers that would have banned students born biologically male from playing on K-12 female sports teams and accused Republicans of perpetuating “hateful and discriminatory rhetoric.” In response, Rep. Barb Dittrich, R-Oconomowoc, called it a “misogynist veto” and claimed Evers “once again stands AGAINST women.”
Biden’s Title IX changes were set to go into effect in August 2024, but a federal judge in Kansas issued an injunction, which applied to Kansas, Alaska and Wyoming, along with schools attended by members of conservative groups suing to block Biden’s revision.
Several Wisconsin school boards, including those in Kettle Moraine, Merton, Elmbrook, Menomonee Falls and Winneconne decided to delay adopting the federal Title IX changes or exclude gender identity language amid the federal injunction. GSAFE and Fair Wisconsin have filed at least five federal Title IX complaints against Wisconsin schools as a result.
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents also suspended work on updating Title IX rules last year because of the federal injunction.
Ron Johnson reintroduces bill to ban transgender student athletes in school sports was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Passage of something like these seems inevitable; it seems obvious that they’ll be challenged on Equal Protection grounds as all the talk has been on specifically banning “boys in girls sports”
Instead of doing the real work of a “legislator”, RoJo wastes our time and money with this nasty waste of time. Shame on him….
again johnson is in the forefront of working hard for wisconsinites.???? can we just not vote again for this do nothing senator who can’t seem to find an issue that would really help his constituents. so tiresome.
RoJo the Clown. At the forefront of cutting edge legislation, as usual. Keeping all of Wisconsin, and the rest of the nation, safe from transgender athletes. I mean, if he doesn’t do this, who will?!?
How about helping the Felon-In-Chief reduce the cost of,,,wait…there is a word that Frump invented for a general term for foodstuff. It’s right on the tip of my tongue.
Oh, yeah. GROCERIES!!!
Stop wasting the tax payers money.. Where’s D.O.G.E when you need them?
I’d been wondering where Ron Johnson had gone. I guess it was to the Repository of Bad Legislation, a dark and dangerous place.
Can we spend some of our tax dollars having mandatory head examinations for people like JOHNSON? He would be nothing without his Daddy in law starting him off in business, and being his main customer.
He is a remarkable waste of space isn’t he?!
I wish I could think of one thing he has done for residents of WI
This minor, almost certainly, one day story, is also an example of three big and important stories. The first is of Johnson, and his Republican House colleagues, as reflections – tools might be a better word – of the triumph of reactionary politics in the United States, and Wisconsin in particular. And, in Wisconsin’s case, of the plutocratic control of the Republican Party by a tiny handful of super-rich, far-right extremists.
The second is the eternal reactionary need for scapegoats to mask the plutocratic agenda, the current focus on transgender young people just being the latest version. It is no accident that these scapegoat groups are the same ones that made progress in recent decades, going back to the civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights and rights of persons with disabilities movements. All to now be put “back in their place” as America is “made great” again.
The third story, clearly connected to the first two, is the decline – collapse may be a better word – in the quality of Wisconsin’s elected officials. A state that produced Republican and Democratic leaders of national stature – Nelson, LaFollette, Reuss and others – is now represented by the likes of Johnson, Grothman, Tiffany and VanOrden. Except in the depths of the former Confederacy, this group would be viewed with deep embarrassment just about anywhere else in the country.
While Mark Twain described the dangers of predicting the future, here is a safe one for the years immediately ahead. This group will happily go along with all of the cruelties to come, especially the ones that are inflicted on the scapegoat groups and the hated liberals. And Wisconsin’s contribution to it – via this cast of characters – will be undeniable.
But, at least, thanks to Ron Johnson, along with his colleagues and Moms for Liberty, innocent little heteronormative Marylou won’t have to worry about going to the bathroom or losing her medal in the 800-meter race to a non-existent transgender male.
frank a schneiger, please take a well deserved bow for what might be the most intelligent, spot-on post I have ever read.