U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville is the driving force behind a piece of legislation that could upend new protections for transgender student athletes.

Tuberville, a former girls’ basketball coach, is reintroducing the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act with the support of 19 Republican colleagues this year.

The bill aims to ban public schools from permitting a “biological male” to participate in a women’s sport, Tuberville said. The act defines gender to be “recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” rather than how an individual chooses to identify.

The proposed legislation comes amid expected changes to Title IX, a 50-year-old civil rights statute that was created to protect against sex discrimination in schools and universities.

The Biden administration is currently finalizing new regulations for the 2023-24 school year, to include the following:

• Protections for transgender and nonbinary students
• Expanded definition of sexual harassment
• New standards for determining the outcome of sexual assault cases
• More protections for pregnant and parenting students

Tuberville has been a strong opponent to the changes. In May of 2022, he sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, warning that he planned to lead efforts against what he called a “misguided policy.”

In a press conference Wednesday, Tuberville accused the Biden administration of “taking a wrecking ball” to Title IX.

“The very law that was created to bring about fairness and protection for women is being used to force them to the sidelines,” he said, calling the changes “unfair, unsafe and wrong.”

Several states have sought to ban trans participation in women’s sports, despite low numbers of transgender student athletes. Roughly 30 trans athletes competed in high school sports during the 2020-21 academic year in the 14 states that recorded such data, a USA Today investigation found.

In 2021, Alabama passed a law that bans transgender athletes from competing on public school sports teams if the sex on their birth certificate does not match the rest of the team. The state high school sports association told AL.com at the time that it was not aware of any student athletes impacted.

State laws banning transgender participation in women’s sports recently have been overturned in Montana and Utah. A West Virginia ban is now on hold after an appeal.

According to an Associated Press survey, sponsors of bills to limit trans participation in sports in more than 20 states struggled to cite examples of trans girls in sports in their states.

A report from The 74 also found no basis for claims that allowing trans students to compete would drive large numbers of athletes away from girls’ high school and college sports. In “sports-obsessed Alabama,” journalists found, female sports participation has risen by 63% between 2012-13 and 2018-19.

Tuberville did not name specific instances of “unsafe” situations in womens’ sports, but referred to “problems in locker rooms” and said he’s heard an “uproar” from parents who had concerns about young girls being able to compete fairly in women’s sports.

In 2022, AL.com was unable to confirm lawmakers’ claims that schools across Alabama had issues accommodating transgender and nonbinary students who wanted to use bathrooms or locker rooms that aligned with their preferred identity.

Tuberville also claimed that 28 national women’s sporting events were won by “biological boys” in the last few years. A conservative-leaning news outlet citing that number says it collected the data over a period of 19 years.

“We don’t need to tear down Title IX just because of this,” he said.

Tuberville’s cosponsors include U.S. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), James Lankford (R-OK), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS), Ted Budd (R-NC), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Mike Braun (R-IN), Rick Scott (R-FL), Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Steve Daines (R-MT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) said Wednesday that she will also cosponsor the bill.