[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 40 (Monday, March 3, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1448-S1449]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



          Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, the price of everything is going up. 
Outbreaks of measles and bird flu are killing people. Airplanes are 
almost crashing or actually crashing and falling out of the sky. Tens 
of thousands of Federal workers, including veterans, are being laid off 
in Donald Trump's government purge. So obviously it is a Monday, and we 
have two votes tonight, and so we are going to address one of those 
critical issues. Oh, no. Actually, we are going to do something totally 
irrelevant to 99.9 percent of all people across the country.
  Now, let's just start with the basics, which is that everyone has and 
deserves human dignity without stipulations or preconditions--not just 
the people you like, not just the people you understand, not just the 
people you agree with. Every human being is God's creature. Everyone--
especially in the United States of America--has the right to be left 
alone. That is what freedom means, right? You have to be left alone to 
live your life however you want within the bounds of the law.
  So what Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up 
a culture war and divide people against each other, and, worse, they 
are trying to distract people from what they are actually doing, which 
is, at a time when people are finding it harder and harder to afford 
the basic necessities, at a time when diseases we eradicated almost 20 
years ago are making a comeback and killing kids, at a time when people 
are getting on flights and saying an extra prayer or breathing a little 
heavier, you have Donald Trump and the Republicans saying: You know 
what, let's cut taxes for billionaires. Let's take money from regular 
people and the things they rely on--Social Security, Medicare, 
Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act. Let's take hundreds of billions of 
dollars from there and shovel it into the pockets of the richest people 
who have ever walked this earth because that is what we need and that 
is what people voted for.
  Republicans are focusing on the wrong 1 percent. Trans people are not 
the reason people can't afford groceries or healthcare or housing. The 
other 1 percent, the top 1 percent economically, is responsible for a 
lot of that,

[[Page S1449]]

and that is who Republicans are desperate to help. They are doing it by 
going after some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
  I will be joining my Democratic colleagues in voting no on the 
pending legislation.
  (Mrs. BRITT assumed the Chair.)