Nearly every Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee skipped or walked out of a Wednesday hearing on protecting women's sports, refusing to call witnesses, ask questions, or even stay in the room while female athletes testified.
Of the committee's ten Democratic members, only two showed up at all. Ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois delivered an opening statement dismissing the proceeding as a "vendetta," announced he would not ask questions, and left before witnesses were sworn in. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota sat briefly but never spoke. Both were gone within the first hour. The remaining eight Democrats never appeared.
Republicans on the panel did not let the empty chairs go unnoticed. Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida, the sharpest critic of the walkout, addressed the female witnesses directly and pointed to the row of vacant Democratic seats.
"Shockingly, not one female Democratic senator has engaged in this hearing or asked you any questions about your experiences, your concerns, your fears based on your backgrounds, [or] what you predict may happen in the future if we don't, as you said, lead."
Moody's frustration carried an edge because the hearing was not an abstraction. Women who compete in female sports sat at the witness table. They had traveled to Washington. And the party that claims to champion women's rights could not be bothered to listen.
Durbin used his opening remarks to reframe the hearing as an attack on transgender youth rather than a question of fairness for female athletes. He cited a Trevor Project study claiming young LGBTQ+ people face a higher risk of suicide, and he argued that protective measures would "subject women and girls to physical inspection by an adult if someone from an opposing team accused them of being transgender", a claim his office had laid out in a March 2025 press release.
Just The News reported that NCAA president Charlie Baker told Durbin during the hearing that fewer than ten known transgender athletes exist among roughly half a million college competitors. Durbin argued that the real threats to female athletes are unequal pay, inadequate resources, and sexual abuse, not the presence of biological males in women's competitions.
Then he left.
His office, when contacted afterward by Fox News Digital's Jackson Thompson, offered a single line: "Sen. Durbin explained his position during his opening statement this morning." No further comment. No explanation for why Democrats called zero witnesses of their own.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, also absent, told Thompson in person that he had skipped the hearing for a classified briefing on the Iran war. When asked his overall stance on protecting women's sports, Blumenthal declined to answer.
"I'm not going to talk about it in the hallway here."
Thompson reached out to all ten Democratic committee members about their absence. Only Durbin's office responded.
The walkout is politically revealing. Polls from the New York Times, Quinnipiac, and Pew Research Center have each found that more than 70 percent of Americans believe biological males should not compete in women's sports. President Trump signed an executive order last February to protect women's athletics, and Congress voted on the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act last year. Democrats who opposed that bill drew strong backlash, including from within their own base.
With the 2026 midterms approaching, many Democrats have quietly distanced themselves from earlier support for transgender athletes in women's competitions. But distancing is not the same as engaging. Wednesday's hearing offered Democrats a chance to make their case, present their own witnesses, and challenge the testimony on the record. They chose silence and empty seats instead.
Twenty-three states still lack rules prohibiting biological males from competing in women's sports. Twenty-seven states have passed protective laws, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled those statutes permissible under both Title IX and the Constitution, as Breitbart reported, citing Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Matt Sharp. California, Maine, and Minnesota are engaged in ongoing legal battles with the Trump administration over the issue.
Sharp put the stakes in plain terms at the hearing:
"Across the country, girls are still losing medals and roster spots, and their privacy and safety are being compromised."
The scope of the problem extends well beyond a handful of high-profile cases. A report released by Concerned Women for America found that transgender athletes have displaced biological women from championship spots 2,293 times since the mid-1980s. Those athletes, born male, have competed in more than 14,300 female sporting events, amateur and professional combined, and have taken an estimated $501,498 in prize money from women, the New York Post reported.
Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, framed the data bluntly:
"Biological men have distinct advantages over biological women. This reality not only puts women in harm's way, but it eliminates opportunities for biological women to earn a living and win competitions."
WNBA player Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever echoed the concern: "I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men."
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina expressed disappointment at the Democratic exodus, linking the issue to physical safety.
"I'm also disappointed our Democratic colleagues left the room, because I think the risk of physical harm is real and has already happened."
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana was more measured but no less direct: "I'm a little disappointed that my Democratic colleagues left. It's their right, but I'm disappointed."
Moody drove the sharpest contrast. She noted that the hearing had devolved into one Republican senator after another questioning the witnesses, not because Republicans monopolized the time, but because no Democrat remained to take a turn.
"The reason why it is going now from one Republican senator to another Republican senator is because there's not one Democratic senator here to ask those that are actually involved as females in female sports about the dangers and missed opportunities and challenges for what's been happening across our nation for our young women and girls."
Moody also suggested Durbin's opening statement was designed to provide cover for the absence of every female Democratic senator on the committee. "I assume that was because he's trying to justify why not one woman on the other side of the aisle showed up to ask these questions and engage," she said.
Democrats did not merely disagree with the hearing's premise. They refused to participate in it. They called no witnesses. They asked no questions. They offered no alternative framework, no competing data, no cross-examination. Durbin labeled the entire exercise a vendetta and walked out before a single witness spoke.
That left female athletes, women who came to Washington to describe what is happening to their sports, their scholarships, their safety, and their futures, testifying to one side of a half-empty room.
The polls say more than 70 percent of the country agrees with those women. The midterms are fourteen months away. And the party that built its brand on defending women could not find a single senator willing to stay and listen to them.
When your position is popular, you show up and make the case. When it isn't, you leave the room and hope nobody notices.
