Sport Bureaucrats Should Do a “Flip Turn” and Save Women’s Sports

Despite its results, the recent NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships propelled forward the movement to save women’s sports. Could it be that college athletes, their parents, athletic alumni and the public are uniting against woke sport bureaucrat decisions forcing women athletes to compete against biological males? As the momentum changes, governing sports bodies should take heed, do a policy “flip turn,” and correct their illogical and unscientific stance promoting social change at the expense of female athletes.

Leading the movement to save women’s sports is The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and The Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC). IWLC explicitly fights for “the continued legal relevance of biological sex.” In sports, IWLC recognizes that competitive sport is a “zero-sum game” and that “male-bodied athletes create risks” for female athletes whether competing on women’s teams or against women.  

IWLC explains its science and fact-based conclusions in the groundbreaking report, “Competition: Title IX, Male-Bodied Athletes, and the Threat to Women’s Sports.” The report summarizes American law and athletics (i.e. Title IX), analyzes the physiological sex differences and the male-female athletic gap, and reviews testimony from female athletes who have competed against male-bodied athletes.

IWF just released its documentary “XX ≠ XY: The Fight To Save Women’s Sports” about a female Ivy League swimmer forced to compete all season against Lia Thomas, the latest biological male to push female athletes out of their own sport. This documentary addresses how the NCAA, USA Swimming, the Ivy League, and University of Pennsylvania have all turned their backs on female athletes, with female athletes losing opportunities to compete and to win. 

Joining IWF and IWLC in the public square are athletes, parents and athletic alumni.

The Daily Wire reported that, after days of silence from most female athletes at the NCAA Women’s Championships, one young woman whose finals spot was stolen from her by a biologically male swimmer spoke out. Brave female swimmer Reka Gyorgy, 2016 Rio Olympian and decorated 5th year senior Virginia Tech athlete, posted a letter to her Instagram account.  

Placing 17th in the women’s 500 freestyle, Gyorgy stated she did not make the finals. She also recognized the female swimmer who placed 9th in the 500 freestyle, which resulted in her not being named an All-American. Both women were displaced by one spot, behind biological male Lia Thomas. Thomas won the event beating out every top collegiate female swimmer, even a Tokyo Olympic silver medalist. 

Gyorgy boldly commented on the NCAA swimming championships and requested the NCAA to 

open their eyes and change [transgender] rules in the future. It doesn’t promote our sport in a good way and I think it is disrespectful against the biologically female swimmers who are competing in the NCAA…It feels like that final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA’s decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete…Every event that transgender athletes competed in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet.

The night before the NCAA championships, University of Texas swimming and diving alumni wrote to their college athletic administrators copying the NCAA. These champion alumni implored the University to “exercise its leadership and influence to protect women’s swimming,” to follow current science and research, and to consider the erosion of female records, such as those by Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky, by biologically male swimmers.

After the NCAA championship, Ivy League parents, writing anonymously to protect backlash against their kids, characterized the policy of allowing biological males to compete against women an “utter abandonment of women and girls.” These parents renounced the woke inclusivity premise that biological males should compete against women and the corresponding scientific question of how:

Athletic associations are cautiously asking: How do we balance fairness and inclusion? And they ask scientists to tell them the precise level to which a male body needs to be impaired to compete fairly against women.

These questions are misogynistic, degrading, and dehumanizing for women. There is no balance of fairness to assess. Women deserve fairness without caveat, and they should not be asked to shoulder the mental health of others at their own expense. A male body cannot become a female body. A woman is not a disadvantaged man.

No she is not. 

Also now fighting for women athletes: the Concerned Women for America (CWA) filed a civil rights complaint against the University of Pennsylvania for refusing to protect the rights of college female athletes under federal law. Penny Nance, CWA CEO and President, asserted

[t]he future of women’s sports is at risk and the equal rights of female athletes are being infringed…We filed a formal civil rights complaint against UPenn in response to this injustice. Any school that defies federal civil rights law by denying women equal opportunities in athletic programs, forcing women to compete against athletes who are biologically male must be held accountable.

The recent NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships served only to highlight the insanity of the organization’s own policy. It’s high time sport governing bodies listened to student athletes, alumni, parents and experts and reversed their misguided policies.