The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to pass a bill, with the help of some Democratic members, that would prohibit men from competing in women’s school sports.

While the legislation mainly succeeded along partisan lines, Democratic Congressmen Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, who both represent more conservative districts in Texas, joined Republicans to restrict men in women’s athletics. Democratic Representative Don Davis voted “present.” Some Democrats have made conciliatory moves towards Republicans on the culture war fights that loomed large in November, when voters rejected gender ideology as a governing priority, while border security and the economy were neglected.

Introduced by GOP Congressman Greg Steube of Florida, the three-page “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” bars any athletic programs that receive federal funds from allowing male-bodied individuals to participate in women’s sports. The bill does not prevent males from training or practicing with an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls “so long as no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team or sport, opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, scholarship, admission to an educational institution, or any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletic program or activity.”

“An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that men don’t belong in women’s sports and that we must allow common sense to prevail,” Steube said on the House floor during debate.

The bill also directs the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study into the “benefits to women or girls of participating in single sex sports that would be lost by allowing males to participate.”

Now, with a Republican-controlled Senate, the bill actually has legs, unlike in 2023 when the then Democratic-dominated Senate declined to pick it up. Men forcing their way into women’s sports and spaces proved to be a salient issue for voters this year. The Trump campaign capitalized on that momentum with a scathing ad that declared of Kamala Harris: “She’s for they/them. I’m for you.” Another major frontier of the trans war is the women’s prison, where men claiming to be women have been housed among the vulnerable female inmate population across the country. President-elect Donald Trump noted Harris’s support for taxpayer funded gender transition surgeries for illegal aliens on the campaign trail.

While many House Democrats still insist Steube’s bill is discrimination against so-called trans youth players, others are questioning whether this is a good hill to die on given the matter’s electoral toxicity. Democratic Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts voted against the bill in 2023 but has lately argued that allowing men to play in women’s sports endangers girls and jeopardizes their athletic opportunities.

“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton told the New York Times. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

However, Moulton opposed the bill on Tuesday. After his November comments, Moulton received backlash from Democrats in Massachusetts, who vowed to find a challenger to defeat him for publicly questioning his party’s overreliance on identity politics.

Liz Bradt, chairwoman of the Salem Democratic City Committee, told the Boston Globe that Moulton’s comments were “egregious,” “transphobic,” and “just a huge slap in the face to a number of our members.” She said she’s heard from “several” people in the state’s sixth district who are considering running against Moulton when he’s up for reelection in 2026.

But Representative Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y.) came to a similar conclusion as Moulton, saying that Democrats who won on Election Day did so by distancing themselves from the party’s radical positions on social issues.

“Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left. I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports,” Suozzi said, according to the New York Times. “Democrats aren’t saying that, and they should be.”