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CV NEWS FEED // Members of New Mexico’s congress tabled a bill that sought to uphold President Donald Trump’s executive order banning men from women’s sports.
The House Committee decided to table the bill in a 4-2 vote. Republican Reps. Stefani Lord and John Block voted against tabling the bill, which was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Andrea Reeb.
Block’s district legislative aide, Joe Sandusky, told CatholicVote in a Feb. 13 email that the bill is “almost certainly dead” and that it is very unlikely to be untabled.
“The bill is very simple and would protect our female athletes from being injured and from having their trophies and futures taken away from them by male athletes,” Block told CatholicVote. “I’m extremely disappointed by the unwillingness of Democrats to treat women with even the smallest degree of equality and respect.”
Democratic Reps. Joanne J. Ferrary, the committee chair, and Angelica Rubio, the committee vice-chair, were not available for comment at the time of publication.
During the committee hearing, Lord shared her unique perspective on why she opposed the bill.
“I’m not gonna pretend that this is not a complex and extremely polarizing issue because it is,” Lord stated. “My parents were lesbians in a very early, early era, one of my very dearest friends is gay, another friend’s transgender.”
Lord said the bill was about protecting girls’ safety and ensuring equal opportunity.
“If I had a daughter that was playing in sports and somebody that was transgender made her not get her scholarship,” Lord added, “I’d be angry.”
Payton McNabb, a female athlete who in 2022 suffered a concussion, brain bleed, and whiplash after a male player spiked a volleyball toward her during a high school game, testified in favor of the bill.
She said she still suffers from constant headaches and other symptoms.
“I nor my teammates ever agreed to play against a male athlete,” McNabb added. “We were forced to by our state athletic association.”
She added, “Women deserve to play on a level playing field without fear of injury.”
Although Democrat lawmakers in the state opposed similar legislation in 2021, the majority of registered voters in New Mexico support the measure, according to The Washington Times.
The outlet reported that 94% of voters agree with the statement that there are “important reasons” to have separate locker rooms according to sex; 84% think there are “important reasons” to separate sports by sex; and 84% agree that “sex” is a biological term referring to male and female, according to a December 2024 survey Wick Insights conducted on behalf of the Independent Women’s Forum.
The poll also found that about four in five New Mexico Democrats support separating sports based on sex and only 5.5% of Democrat voters in the state “strongly disagreed” with separating sports by sex.
