U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard bill would bar transgender women from Title IX sports

In one of her final acts representing Hawaii in Congress, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has introduced a bill that would bar transgender women from participating in Title IX sports, saying they have an unfair biological advantage.

Title IX is the landmark legislation championed by the late Hawaii U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink to give girls and women equal access to high school and college sports.

In a statement Friday, Gabbard said she and Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma had introduced HR 8932, which they call the Protect Women’s Sports Act.

“Given the average difference in abilities conferred by biological sex, this bill would clarify Title IX protections for female athletes is based on biological sex,” Gabbard said in her statement.

In a Honolulu Star-Advertiser Hawaii Poll conducted in October, Oahu voters gave Gabbard the lowest approval rating by far of any of Hawaii’s four congressional members.

Gabbard — a onetime long-shot candidate to become president — received a dismal 44% approval rating.

After serving four terms in Congress, Gabbard chose not run for reelection this year. State Sen. Kai Kahele (D, Hilo), a lieutenant colonel in the Hawaii Air National Guard, won election to replace her.

During her run for the White House, Gabbard went out of her way to distance herself from anti-gay policies that she previously advocated for, saying her military service changed her opinion.

She credited prior anti-gay positions on her upbringing. Her father is former city Councilman and current state Sen. Mike Gabbard (D, Kapolei-Makakilo), who had run for Congress as a Republican. Her mother, Carol Gabbard, won a seat on the state Board of Education in 2000 over objections from gay-rights activists.

But one of Tulsi Gabbard’s final bills representing Hawaii in Congress reveals that her time in Washington “was more about her career and fame than representing her constituents,” said Colin Moore, a University of Hawaii associate professor of political science and director of UH’s Public Policy Center. “That’s why she’s so unpopular, because her supporters feel like they were used.”

Moore said that Gabbard’s Title IX bill has no chance of being passed in the Democratic-controlled House, belies the will of the majority of rural Oahu and neighbor island constituents she represents, and is likely, instead, intended to set her up for a possible career as a right-leaning commentator.

“Why she would choose this as her last piece of legislation that her name would be associated with, I find it a little inexplicable,” Moore said. “She spent a lot of her presidential campaign trying to repair her relationship with the LGBTQ community. This obviously won’t help. It’s the enigma of Tulsi Gab- bard. … We’re talking about a very small number of people this would apply to. Given the enormity of all of the other problems, I’m not sure this is the thing that our member of Congress needs to be paying attention to.”

To social conservatives on the mainland, Moore said the Title IX bill would make Gabbard “look like a hero. She used to have social conservative credentials and is apparently returning to them.”

At the same time, Moore said, the Title IX bill announced Friday “would basically end your career as a Democrat. What is Tulsi Gabbard’s next move is a favorite parlor game.”