A comment by state Sen. Paul Sarlo about transgender athletes playing in women’s sports during a recent interview has provoked strong reactions.

The remark by Sarlo (D-Bergen) that “Males should not be participating in women’s sports, whether it’s at the rec level, the high school level or the collegiate level. Period at the end,” made in an interview on State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, drew support from Republican colleagues in the Senate and dismay from LGBTQ advocates.

“Any type of discrimination is not OK. It’s just not. It’s not the law, it’s not the policy of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. It’s not in line with the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination,” said Aedy Miller, communications manager for Garden State Equality and a transgender woman who competes in roller derby.

Title IX, the original civil rights bill, prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives federal funding. The Obama and Biden administrations added LGBTQ people to it, through U.S. Department of Education guidance and executive order. The Trump administration rolled that back.

“Since ’09 this policy has been in place with zero complaints of any kind. What’s changed in early 2025? The only thing that’s changed is the politics and the incoming Trump administration,” said Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex).

A new bill passed by the House on Tuesday, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, would amend Title IX to recognize a person’s sex as “based solely on a person’s gender at birth” and would mean any school that allows “a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls” would risk losing federal funding. State Sen. Mike Testa (R-Cumberland), who introduced a similar bill in New Jersey, is hoping to gain support for it from Sarlo, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee.

“Title IX was to create a level playing field for females in their chosen sport. And allowing biological males to compete against biological females is just simply unfair. My party is consistently accused of not following the science. And in this case, we absolutely want to follow the science, and the most basic building block of human beings is DNA. And we want to follow the DNA, whether you are a biological male or a biological female,” Testa said.

“They’re trying to make this argument about biology, which studies have shown, that generally speaking trans people, on net, don’t necessarily have any kind of physical advantage when it comes to a lot of different sports,” Miller said.

Sarlo was not available for comment on whether he would support Testa’s bill.