#hr28

Molly Sprayregen at LGBTQ Nation:

House Democrats overwhelmingly showed solidarity with the trans community this week, with only two (both from Trump-voting districts) voting in favor of an anti-trans sports bill passed by the GOP. The unified Democratic opposition to the bill is significant from a party that has appeared to be fracturing over trans rights since Donald Trump’s election victory. And according to one member of Congress, it is this type of strength that will ultimately allow the Democrats to protect vulnerable communities. “When we tell the truth about what Republicans are doing, and when we’re unafraid to do that, it generates momentum,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told political reporter Dave Weigel. “When we lean into that momentum that we generate, and when Democrats aren’t afraid to throw a damn punch, then we can see that we can yield results.” She added that the party can’t “cower in the face of tough issues ” because “people are looking for strength.” “The reason why I think some folks in the Democratic Party have felt like trans issues are hot water, or immigration issues are hot water, is because they haven’t felt confident or the ability to confidently throw a punch on solid ground that is persuasive and uniting people” Calling out GOP malice “aggressively” is what brings people together, she emphasized. “When we just show people how a bill like this doesn’t just hurt trans girls, which is a problem, it hurts all girls; and when we show that a bunch of men who are letting women die in parking lots should not be trusted, it’s like letting foxes into the henhouse.” “I think people smell blood in the water,” she concluded. “They can understand weakness. And where they see weakness, that’s when everything kind of falls apart. So we have to be strong about these things. And I think projecting strength attracts support.”

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

Democrats in the U.S. Senate on Monday evening blocked a Republican-led attempt to enshrine discrimination against transgender athletes in federal law. The lawmakers rejected the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. The bill, part of a more considerable conservative effort to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, failed to garner enough votes needed to advance. After senators voted to confirm President Donald Trump's pick for education secretary, professional wrestling magnate Linda McMahon, the upper chamber considered moving forward with the anti-trans legislation. The bill was stopped by a cloture vote, which is a procedural motion that requires 60 votes to end debate and move forward. The vote was 51 to 45. The legislation, introduced in the House of Representatives by Florida GOP Rep. Greg Steube and passed by Republicans earlier this year with the support of two Democrats, sought to rewrite Title IX protections by defining sex in athletics solely based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” If enacted, the bill would have effectively barred transgender women and girls from participating in federally funded school and college sports. The bill also called for federal studies on the impact of transgender inclusion in women’s sports and potential “adverse psychological and developmental effects” on cisgender athletes. There is no evidence that transgender athletes are a danger to cisgender peers. While it did not mandate physical examinations to determine an athlete’s sex, critics warned that its enforcement could lead to intrusive scrutiny of all female athletes.

[...] The bill’s failure comes amid a broader, coordinated effort by Republicans to legislate transgender people out of public life. Just last month, Trump signed an executive order titled “No Men in Women’s Sports." Trump used the signing ceremony as an opportunity to spew inflammatory rhetoric, falsely claiming that men have “invaded” women’s sports and that male athletes are “beating up and injuring” women—a claim that has been debunked time and time again.

GREAT NEWS: Senate kills the GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act (S9), an anti-trans bill banning trans women in women’s sports, as it failed to pass cloture (which requires 60). All Dems held strong in voting against this.

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So, little late on this 'cause I kinda got distracted by bloody *Geralt of Rivia*, but~

MHW's Main Story, COMPLETEDDDDDDD~! :D

And I'll be completely honest- the fact that the hardest fight I had was bloody *Nergigante* 'cause of it's broken hitboxes is... definitely something. I don't know *what* something, but it is definitely *something*.

Regardless~ I'm looking forward to getting my Fashionsouls (What would it be for this game? HunterFashion? FashionHunting? *FashionWorld?*) on and playing with layered armour once I get it through Iceborne.

Then the process of killing everything enough to get *all* the armour is gonna start and that is gonna be... :P

Xeno is weirdly cute, and *waaaaaaaaaaaaay* too big, and the final three Elder-Dragons were weirdly easy... Except Vaal Hazak at first, though I think that's mostly 'cause I ran out of Honey for it...

Ryan Adamczeski at The Advocate:

The U.S. House of Representatives is under extreme scrutiny from LGBTQ+ rights groups after passing a bill that would effectively ban transgender women and girls from school sports. The House voted on the so-called Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 Tuesday after Republicans listed it as priority for early votes, passing with a vote of 218-206. The bill threatens to withhold federal funding from schools that do not comply, and a companion bill has been introduced in the Senate. The bill is among several policies the GOP has expedited targeting trans people, which would mandate that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 be enforced based on “biological sex" — though it does not define “biological sex" — impacting trans people’s access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and protections from discrimination under the law. Transgender people are only 0.6 percent of the overall population, according to the Williams Institute, and they make up an even smaller percentage of student athletes — National Collegiate Athletic Association head Charlie Baker told a Senate panel last month that out of 510,000 athletes in U.S. NCAA schools, there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes who currently compete in college sports (0.002 percent).

The legislation has an “intrusive focus on scrutiny of students’ bodies,” according to over 400 human rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, and Advocates for Trans Equality. The groups issued an open letter to the legislature in opposition to this and other bills, which they said “invite scrutiny and harassment of any other student perceived by anyone as not conforming to sex stereotypes.” The groups also called the conservative legislators pushing anti-trans legislation “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” as their “agenda is not about the rights of women and girls.”

The GOP majority passed the transphobic bill deceitfully named “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” (HR28) to ban trans girls and women from women’s sports 218-206, and the Senate is the next stop (but it has its own companion bill).

HR28 (aka the GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act) does NOT do a darn thing about “fairness in women’s sports” nor “protect women” but gives license to privacy invasion and humiliating genitalia inspections.

The good news is this: House Democrats stayed almost all united in voting against the GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act, with only 2 Democrats (Cuellar, Gonzalez) voting in favor and a 3rd voting President (D. Davis). Hopefully enough Dems in the Senate block this crud at the cloture stage.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Two Democrats help House Republicans pass anti-trans sports ban