Republican Senators push bans on college transgender sports during gambling hearing – QnotesCarolinas.com

On Tuesday, December 17, what had been a hearing on sports betting and gambling addiction between the Senate and NCAA chief Charles Baker ended up turning into a conversation about transgender athletes.

While discussing the Supporting Affordability and Fairness with Every Bet Act (SAFE Bet Act), Senators John Kennedy (R-LA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) shifted the conversation from the Dick Durbin (D-IL) led session to one about trans women in college sports. Making a decided shift from questions about the fairness of where most of the advantages in gambling are, with the room agreeing the “House” has much of it, Kennedy then asks Baker if his organization is there to promote fairness in sports.

To this, Kennedy begins the new line of questioning: “A Transgender woman is a biological male, yes? And a biological male is always going to have a physiological advantage competing in a collegiate sport against a biological female.” Baker’s reply, that “There’s not a lot of research on it, but it’s certainly debatable,” began an uproar between Kennedy and Hawley about Baker’s support and allowance of trans-athlete competition in college sports.

“You think it’s debatable? You don’t think a biological male has an advantage, every time, competing against a biological female?” Kennedy asked.

Where Baker stands with the five federal court cases that have consistently sided with participation, Kennedy, in his time on the mic, pushed for the NCAA Chief to “stand up and take a leadership position,” and to “go to Amazon and buy a spine online,” while fully admitting that pushing for a ban on transgender sports participation could get Baker rightly sued and disparaged for such a move.

After taking over from the preceding senator to question the NCAA panel, Hawley immediately began badgering Baker over allowing trans women to play against women, stating “there is no federal law” for the participation, and that “this is your federal policy that you will not defend because it is indefensible.” He repeatedly shouted and spoke over Baker at various moments during the exchange.

Republicans have largely opposed trans inclusion in sports and vilified trans athletes and their allies as harming cis female athletes. There have been recent scientific and political debates about whether trans female athletes have biological advantages over cisgender competitors, however, there is no concrete evidence that trans women have an unfair advantage in sports.

A recent study by the British Journal of Sports Medicine has found that trans women have equivalent physical metrics to cisgender women after being on hormone replacement therapy. Few other studies examine trans athletes in comparison to cisgender athletes.

In response to the redirection of Kennedy and Hawley’s line of questioning, Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) asked how many trans athletes there were. Out of 510,000 total athletes, Baker said, there are less than 10 total in NCAA schools (a figure that translates to fewer than 0.002 percent of all NCAA athletes).

Minority Whip of the West Virginia House of Representatives Shawn Fluharty summarized his thoughts on X (Twitter) after the hearing, stating, “Congressional hearing on sports betting turned into a hearing on political tantrums on manufactured outrage over NCAA trans athlete policy. If Congress wants to jump in on sports betting, maybe find some adults in the room first. That was embarrassing.”