Northeast
Pennsylvania GOP leaders will reintroduce bill to restrict transgender athletes in girls, women's sports
Roughly 2½ years after former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed a bill to restrict transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports, Republican leaders in the state are making another push to do so.
Penn Live reported Friday that conservative senators in the state are pushing the new “Save Women’s Sports Act” among numerous bills introduced in Harrisburg this week.
Every female member of the Senate GOP signed a memo that stated an intention to reintroduce the bill.
“It’s imperative that we protect the opportunity for female athletes to compete on the athletic field in a fair and equal manner,” the senators wrote in this week’s memo.
The Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg Oct. 6, 2015. (John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images))
“Allowing a biological male to compete on a women’s scholastic athletic team puts all women on the playing field at an automatic disadvantage.”
In 2022, Wolf called barring biological male athletes from female sports discriminatory against “marginalized youth.”
“I have been crystal clear during my time in office that hate has no place in Pennsylvania, especially discrimination against already marginalized youth representing less than half of 1% of Pennsylvania’s population,” Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement after he vetoed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.”
In this Sept. 11, 2018, file photo, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf attends the 9/11 Flight 93 Memorial Service in Shanksville, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
TRANS FEMALE WEIGHTLIFTER TAKES USA POWERLIFTING LAWSUIT TO MINNESOTA SUPREME COURT
Wolf added lawmakers who voted for the bill “should be ashamed of themselves” for supporting what he called “incredibly harmful” policy.
Wolf left office Jan. 17, 2023, and was succeeded by fellow Democrat Josh Shapiro.
The veto of the bill came months after biological male Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania won an NCAA Division I title. Riley Gaines, who swam against Thomas, has since become a leading voice of keeping female sports female.
Half of U.S. states have restrictions on transgender athletes in female sports.
A transgender rights supporter takes part in a rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Getty Images)
President-elect Trump has said he would move to prohibit transgender girls and women from competing against biological females.
There is a battle in Minnesota’s Supreme Court involving transgender powerlifter JayCee Cooper, who was banned from female competitions by USA Powerlifting.
Cooper sued USA Powerlifting in 2021 after being rejected from the women’s team three years earlier. In the complaint, Cooper alleged the organization violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against people “having or being perceived as having a self-image or identity not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.”
After appeals, it was eventually ruled the federation did not discriminate against Cooper.
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State Treasurer Erick Russell achieved a 14% increase last year investing Connecticut’s pension fund assets, gaining roughly $8.3 billion for retirement programs for state employees, teachers and other municipal workers.
The state, which oversees nearly $69 billion in pension assets, aims for an average annual return on pension investments of 6.9%.
Expectations for bigger gains grew throughout the past year as key stock market indices surged. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges, grew by more than 13% in 2025. And the S&P 500, which follows 500 traded companies, topped 16%.
Among peer states and other entities that manage public pension funds holding more than $10 billion in assets, Connecticut’s 2025 performance ranks in the top 17%, Russell said.
But the treasurer, who also announced this week he will seek a second term, said the latest big earnings stem from more than the big gains Wall Street enjoyed in 2025.
“Markets certainly have been strong, but a lot of this is about our overall asset allocation,” said Russell, who updated the Investment Advisory Council Tuesday on the state’s portfolio. “The progress we’ve been making … is a good sign that we’re set up for future success.”
Russell also reported investment gains of 10.3% for the 2024 calendar year and 12.8% for 2023.
State officials particularly have focused on improving investment returns since a May 2023 report from Yale University researchers found Connecticut’s results badly lagged the nation’s over the prior decade.
That only compounded an even larger pension problem that state officials began to address in the early 2010s. According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Connecticut governors and legislatures failed to save adequate for pension benefits for more than seven decades prior to 2011. This deprived the state treasurer of huge assets that otherwise could have been invested to generate billions of dollars in revenue over those seven decades.
The treasurer’s office under Russell has put more funds into private and domestic markets and curbed reliance on investment managers who receive large fees for their work.
Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly also have greatly assisted efforts to bolster the fiscal health of pension programs in recent years. Since 2020, they have used $10 billion from budget surpluses to make supplemental payments into pensions for state employees and municipal teachers. That’s in addition to annual required payments that currently approach $3.3 billion in the General Fund.
“These returns highlight the impressive work of Treasurer Russell and his team in increasing investment returns,” Lamont’s budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said Tuesday. “Gov. Lamont’s focus has been on building a sustainable Connecticut for the future. Every dollar in additional investment revenue is funds the state can use to cut taxes and provide more resources for essential programs like education, child care, housing, and social services safety nets.”
Russell, a New Haven Democrat, said he has tried to make the office both “disciplined and forward-looking.”
“Over the last several years, we haven’t just changed how the office works, we’ve changed who it works for. We’re ushering in a new era of fiscal responsibility, making significant payments on long-term debt that has allowed us to invest in the residents of Connecticut and begin to lift up communities across our state.”
Russell also brokered a key compromise in 2023 between Lamont and the legislature that salvaged the Baby Bonds program, an initiative that invests long-term funds in Connecticut’s poorest children when they’re born to help finance educational and business opportunities later in life.
Keith M. Phaneuf is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org). Copyright 2026 © The Connecticut Mirror.
A person was hit by a vehicle Tuesday morning in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Police responded just after 10 a.m. to the crash at the intersection of Elm Street and Carter Street.
Officers began treating the pedestrian, who was then taken to an area hospital with unspecified injuries.
The driver stayed at the scene, the Waltham Police Department said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
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