{"id":173904,"date":"2026-04-23T14:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173904\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:44:07","slug":"pa-senators-passed-transgender-female-athlete-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173904\/","title":{"rendered":"PA Senators Passed Transgender Female Athlete Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Whitney Downard\u00a0|\u00a0Pennsylvania Capital-Star<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>The Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg.
Credit: Tom Gralish\/Philadelphia Inquirer<\/p>\n

Even as Republican state senators passed\u00a0a second attempt<\/a>\u00a0to restrict transgender female athlete participation in Pennsylvania schools, leadership acknowledged that it was unlikely to pass in the Democrat-controlled state House.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to Democrat\u2019s political tricks and parliamentary games in the House, this legislation has been stalled,\u201d said Sen. Judy Ward (R-Blair) at a Wednesday press conference. \u201cThrough the passage of this legislation, we are again calling on the House of Representatives to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward\u2019s first version,\u00a0Senate Bill 9<\/a>, passed the body on a\u00a032-18 vote<\/a>\u00a0last May but has yet to receive a hearing in the House. An identical Senate version moved on a\u00a030-17<\/a>\u00a0bipartisan vote Wednesday. Four Democratic senators voted in favor of the proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local State Sen. Frank Farry, a Republican, voted in favor of the bill, and State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, a Democrat, voted against it.<\/p>\n

But over a dozen Republican senators maintained that voters wanted the bill to advance, noting that\u00a027 other states<\/a>\u00a0have transgender female athlete bans and an estimated\u00a080% of Americans<\/a>\u00a0support a ban.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A 2022 survey of Pennsylvanians found that\u00a055% of voters<\/a>\u00a0supported such a law. But pollster Berwood Yost of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster said, \u201cI can\u2019t imagine this is top of mind for most people at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA majority of Pennsylvania voters might support it, but it\u2019s not even in their top 10 issues that they care about,\u201d said Yost. \u201cRight now, it\u2019s the cost of things and the perceived inability of our governing class to create solutions that impact their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I can understand why they might put it forward, I don\u2019t think it helps them at all in this current election cycle and current political climate,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania will be a\u00a0key battleground state<\/a>\u00a0in the fight to control the U.S. House. As\u00a0public opinion sours<\/a>\u00a0on President Donald Trump, that sentiment might impact other races, including the 228 Pennsylvanian legislative seats up for election.<\/p>\n

Some political consultants and think tanks have urged congressional candidates \u201cto avoid messaging on trans issues altogether,\u201d as\u00a0reported by The 19th*<\/a>. They point to \u201crecent survey results that showed voters were tired of hearing policy discourse about trans rights from both parties over more core issues like the economy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A focus on transgender policies in the state \u201cprobably won\u2019t help\u201d in the Keystone State, said Yost, but could hurt a candidate in a tight race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at where the fate of the state House and the state Senate is going to be decided, it\u2019s in places \u2026 where there\u2019s a smaller gap between the partisan difference,\u201d said Yost. \u201cThis is likely to be way down the list of things voters care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to Democratic criticism about prioritizing the bill over \u201caffordability\u201d issues, Sen. Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) added that the General Assembly is in the midst of crafting the state\u2019s next budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can walk and chew gum at the same time,\u201d said Martin. \u201cWe can focus on those issues, while also caring about the safety, well-being of, and opportunity and fairness for women and young girls in this commonwealth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

GOP compares bill to Olympic policy
Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) called the bill a \u201cpriority\u201d for his caucus on the floor, noting members of the lower chamber had also passed bills \u2014 sometimes repeatedly, as is the case with an increase to the minimum wage and legalizing cannabis \u2014 it knows won\u2019t advance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Olympics did what we passed today. And so if it\u2019s good enough for the international community to protect our female athletes and to support equality in competition, it should be good enough for this commonwealth to do the same,\u201d said Pittman in the press conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro called supportive lawmakers \u201cextremists<\/a>\u201d following its first passage last summer, which Pittman referenced in his remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if the governor wants to call us extreme, more power to him. But basically what he\u2019s saying is the entire international community is extreme because the International Olympic Committee did exactly \u2014 exactly \u2014 what we did in legislation earlier today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the Senate proposal doesn\u2019t go as far as the new Olympic standard, specifically banning female athletes with \u201cdifferences in sex development,\u201d which can include those who are intersex. Intersex people make up\u00a0as much as 1.7% of the population<\/a>, similar to the number of people with red hair or green eyes, and may have both male and female sex characteristics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ward emphasized that \u201cphysical advantages \u2026 can create unfair competition,\u201d specifically citing testosterone. But she panned those \u201crare\u201d intersex athletes, which she said were \u201ctaken care of at birth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are assigned a biological sex at birth. Pennsylvania has male and female on their birth certificates, so these individuals are assigned a sex at birth,\u201d said Ward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some intersex individuals have petitioned hospitals to\u00a0stop performing surgeries<\/a>\u00a0to align an infant\u2019s genitalia to one sex.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Female Olympian runner Caster Semenya \u201cwas assigned female at birth in South Africa and has testosterone levels higher than the typical female range,\u201d as reported by\u00a0the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Because of Semenya\u2019s female identity, she could compete in Pennsylvania \u2014 but not in the Los Angeles Olympics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pittman suggested that House lawmakers could refine the bill to address intersex athletes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senators didn\u2019t have a firm estimate on the number of transgender athletes, estimating it to be in the dozens. Last year, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association told the Associated Press it was aware of\u00a0just one transgender student athlete<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the collegiate level, the NCAA president estimated there were \u201cless than 10<\/a>\u201d transgender student athletes at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n

In a statement, House Democrats said\u00a0more than 250 of the 300 bills<\/a>\u00a0passed by the body awaited Senate action, including the budget and bills that would deliver \u201creal help for working families who can\u2019t afford rising costs, including for gas, groceries, and electricity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Senate is wasting time and taxpayer dollars sending the same old culture war legislation without even bothering to discuss the issue with us directly,\u201d continued Nicole Reigelman, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Capital-Star<\/a>\u00a0is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions:\u00a0info@penncapital-star.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Whitney Downard\u00a0|\u00a0Pennsylvania Capital-Star The Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. Credit: Tom Gralish\/Philadelphia Inquirer Even as Republican state senators passed\u00a0a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-173904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}