(The Center Square) – Federal legislation passing the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday has mirror language to North Carolina’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act that became law on Aug. 16, 2023.
Party-line votes also reflected the times. Two of the 48 Democrats in the state House and no state senators were on board two summers ago; on Tuesday, two Democrats in Washington were against the measure, and Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., voted “present.”
Davis didn’t post a statement to social media or his press releases. The Center Square was unsuccessful before publication getting questions answered by Davis about his position or intention with his selective choice of vote.
The difference in the measures is scope—the congressional proposal is tied to federal money through Title IX, while the state law prohibits educational arms from allowing males into female athletics regardless of receiving taxpayer dollars applies to private institutions as well as public ones.
U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., authored a bill – Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 – aimed at helping the landmark 1972 law signed by President Richard Nixon known as Title IX. Within Section 901, the definition is given that “sex shall be recognized solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
In the state legislation, the definition is “a student’s sex shall be recognized based solely on the student’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The leading voice for the movement to protect women’s spaces, former University of Kentucky All-American swimmer Riley Gaines, was on hand in Raleigh at initial passage in April that year and has been joined on the powerful Independent Women’s Voice ambassador team by North Carolinian Payton McNabb.
McNabb was a high school volleyball player whose career was ended by the spike of a boy saying he was a girl so he could play. The state law now in place would have prevented what the state’s public school governing body for athletics allowed.
Gaines was also on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Because Steube’s bill ties to Title IX, there are exempt public and private schools inclusive of elementary, secondary and higher education. Institutions receiving federal financial assistance, however, are in violation if operating, sponsoring or facilitating an athletic program or activity and allowing a “male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.”
North Carolina’s law prohibits public middle and high schools, colleges and universities from allowing males to participate on female sports teams. Before going to the governor’s desk, amendments in the Senate had removed restrictions on women playing on men’s teams, as well as references to collegiate intramural sports.
Bill sponsors cited numerous examples of female athletes sidelined by players – males saying they were female – in cycling, golf, track, disc golf, roller derby, swimming and volleyball.
The public school governing body for athletics, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, had previously allowed case-by-case judgment on students wishing to compete in a sport for boys or girls that does not align with their chromosomes.
In the federal measure, the Senate is next to take up the bill before it could reach the desk of the president. Passage in the House was 218-206.
Ten votes for the measure were from North Carolina Republican Reps. Dr. Greg Murphy, Virginia Foxx, Addison McDowell, David Rouzer, Rev. Mark Harris, Richard Hudson, Pat Harrigan, Chuck Edwards, Brad Knott and Tim Moore.
Democratic Reps. Deborah Ross, Valerie Foushee and Alma Adams were against. Texas Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez were the lone Democrats in support. No Republicans voted against it.
In the state legislation, the General Assembly chambers each voted to override a veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The Senate’s 27-18 override had no Democrats for it and no Republicans against it; in the House, the 74-45 override had Democratic Reps. Garland Pierce of Scotland County and Michael Wray of Northampton County in favor, and Rep. Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County supportive with them in initial chamber passage but changing his vote to “no” at the override.
