Senate Democrats opposed legislation on Monday to ban self-described transgender males competing in female sports leagues by declaring such participation a violation of Title IX.

The bill filed by Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, would have prohibited “school athletic programs from allowing individuals whose biological sex at birth was male to participate in programs that are for women or girls,” but was defeated in a party-line vote.

Some forty-five Democrats voted against the measure, meaning that the bill failed to reach the sixty votes necessary to advance. Tuberville nevertheless vowed that “this is far from over.”

The bill would have said that schools allowing males to compete against females are in violation of Title IX, which bans “discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs or activities, including in public elementary and secondary schools and in colleges.”

The vote occurred even as more than 79% of respondents in one recent survey from The New York Times said that men should not be allowed to compete in female sports, marking an increase from 67% of respondents in a survey from The Center Square two years earlier.

Other lawmakers criticized the Democrats who voted against the legislation, which sought to codify an executive order from President Donald Trump. Senate Majority Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, said that Americans concur “men should not compete against women in sports” and noted “Democrats are out of touch on this common-sense issue.”