After weeks of being home and talking to his constituents like other members of Congress, Rep. Jim McGovern was surprised to find himself back in the House Chamber considering trans issues — because while he was home in Massachusetts, McGovern said, “this issue didn’t come up at all. Not a single person brought this issue up to me.”
“Republicans are obsessed with bullying and attacking trans people,” McGovern said. “It’s cruel. Frankly, it’s creepy. And it’s a really rotten thing to do. I’m sick and tired of the other side picking on vulnerable populations. Enough already.”
Trans kids deserve to be supported, respected and included—not bullied by politicians in Congress and in state legislatures across the country. The bottom line is that a blanket ban on trans kids playing sports is just plain wrong. pic.twitter.com/Vp5yEj7scj
— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) April 17, 2023
McGovern says that some people claim the bill — H.R. 734, limiting trans women’s participation in sports — is about keeping kids safe. He goes on sardonically to note that if keeping kids safe is the objective, then gun control measures must surely be a bigger priority than athletic bans on trans people.
Enumerating a series of tragic gun violence incidents that have taken the lives of American children, McGovern asks: “What is this, some kind of sick joke?”
[Note: The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act that McGovern addresses would prohibit transgender students from participating on female sports teams, limiting participation as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”]
McGovern, who is a ranking member of the Rules Committee, foresaw the kind of bill prioritization the House would face if Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s concessions to the far right House Freedom Caucus gave the group too much sway over the rules that govern what bills get brought to a vote.
McGovern told Politico just after McCarthy won the Speakership in January: “There’s a reason why the Freedom Caucus wants to pack the Rules Committee with their membership, because they want to be able to control the bills that come to the floor. They want to control the content of the bills that come to the floor.”
McGovern, who entered Congress in 1997, is the Ranking Member of the Rules Committee, often called the most powerful committee in Congress.
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