So much for S.9

March 4, 2025

Well, we knew it was a long shot.

Yesterday, I posted a piece called “All Eyes on S.9.” The purpose of that piece was to urge readers to contact Senate Democrats and tell them to vote YES on S.9, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. Many of you did. Thank you!

This eminently sensible and straightforward piece of legislation would have defined the word “sex” accurately in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and prohibited male athletes from competing in female-only athletics at educational institutions funded under Title IX. It passed in the House of Representatives in 2023, but did not advance in the Senate that year. I published an article about why progressives should support it. It passed again in the House of Representatives in January of this year, with two Democrats in support, and came to a cloture vote in the Senate on Monday.

Seven Democrats would have had to vote yes on it for it to get past cloture, and many of us who support the bill knew that was extremely unlikely. However, we thought there was a remote possibility we might get one or two yes votes from Senate Dems, which would at least have shifted the national conversation. But nope. Not a single Senate Democrat voted yes.

I launched the Democratic Women’s Declaration (DWD) on November 6, 2024. This morning, the DWD posted the following thread on X:

Feel free to give the thread some likes and/or re-posts if you’d like.

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