WASHINGTON, D.C. — Our Bodies, Our Sports today announced the launch of a landmark “Take Back Title IX” Summer 2024 Bus Tour across America featuring former Olympians, NCAA athletes, highschool athletes, coaches, and prominent women’s advocates. The tour, hosted by Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition, the nation’s first and only coalition of women’s advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum fighting to protect women’s sports, will call attention to the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations and the devastating impact the new rules will have on women and the growing threat to women’s equal athletic opportunity, privacy, and safety.
The tour will hit the road next week with its first stop in Scranton, Pennsylvania on May 29. From there, the tour will travel coast to coast throughout the month of June holding events in cities and towns throughout the nation. The tour bus will appear in Oklahoma, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Washington D.C., Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Wisconsin, and Maryland.
The tour builds on the momentum the Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition has built over the past two years standing up for women and girls — creating the largest, most ideologically diverse women’s movement of our time.
The Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition formed in 2022 to defend women’s sports and the integrity of the female sporting category. Despite political and ideological differences, members of the coalition stand together with gratitude for the generations of female athletes who came before us and in defense of all the women and girls who will come next.
Coalition members include Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), Champion Women, Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, International Consortium on Female Sports (ICFS), Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), the US chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI USA), Concerned Women for America (CWA), Young Women for America, Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC), and Independent Women’s Network (IWN).
Our Bodies, Our Sports believes that taking opportunities from women and giving them to men doesn’t enforce Title IX, it violates it. That was true before the Biden administration dropped its new Title IX rule, and it is still true today.
On the 52nd anniversary of Title IX (Sunday, June 23, 2024), the “Take Back Title IX” tour will roll into Washington, D.C. and hold a press conference near the White House, followed by a rally event to commemorate the final annual celebration of the landmark sex equality law before the unlawful rewrite by the Biden administration upend Title IX as we have always known it. The new regulations strip away all sex-based protections in education, undermine women’s rights, and require schools to allow males to self-identify into women’s spaces, opportunities, and athletics.
The final stretch of the tour takes place during National Women’s Sports Week, initiated by Independent Women’s Forum in 2022 and observed annually during the week of June 23. In recognition of Women’s Sports Week, June 23-June 29, the tour is planning two special events featuring music performances in Washington, DC and Nashville, TN to celebrate female athletes – past, present, and future – for their athletic participation and achievement in sport.
DETAILS:
WHAT: Our Bodies, Our Sports “Take Back Title IX” Summer 2024 Bus Tour
WHY: Our Bodies, Our Sports is hitting the road from coast to coast this summer, activating supporters across the country to take back Title IX and stand up for women’s sports.
New Biden administration regulations violate Title IX, the statute they claim to enforce, by requiring schools to open up women’s sports and women’s spaces to males. It’s time to fight back.
WHEN: May 29 – June 28, 2024
WHERE:
- Scranton, PA 5/29
- Lancaster, PA 5/31
- Oklahoma City, OK 6/7
- Kalispell, MT 6/10
- Las Vegas, NV 6/12
- Scottsdale, AZ 6/13
- Omaha, NE 6/15
- Columbus, OH 6/18
- Charleston, WV 6/19
- Chapel Hill, NC 6/20
- Washington, DC 6/25
- Virginia Beach, VA 6/27
- Nashville, TN 6/28
- More stops to be added.
Special guest speakers along the tour include:
- Martina Navratilova, OLY, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, founding member of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group
- Riley Gaines, 12x All American swimmer, 5x SEC Champion and record holder, Independent Women’s Forum ambassador, and host of “Gaines for Girls” on OutKick
- Tulsi Gabbard, former U.S. Representative (D-HI), original sponsor of the Protect Women’s Sports Act
- Paula Scanlan, former University of Pennsylvania swimmer and Independent Women’s Forum ambassador
- Payton McNabb, former high school volleyball player and Independent Women’s Forum ambassador
- Kim Russell, former Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach at Oberlin College and Independent Women’s Forum ambassador
- Madisan DeBos, Southern Utah University D1 cross country and track athlete whose relay team competed against a male athlete
- Nancy Hogshead J.D., OLY, Champion Women CEO; civil rights lawyer; 2x Olympian; 3x gold medalist and one silver in swimming; Women’s Sports Foundation – President, 1991-1993, Legal Advisor, 2003-2010, Senior Director of Advocacy, 2010-2014; and recently named to the U.S. Congressional Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics
- Marshi Smith, former NCAA and PAC-10 Champion swimmer from the University of Arizona, and co-founder of Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS)
- Selina Soule, former elite high school track and field athlete from Connecticut. 10x All Conference, 5x All State, 3x All New England, and 4x National Qualifier track athlete and one of the first advocates for keeping women’s sports for women
- Kara Dansky, president of Women’s Declaration International USA
- Linnea Saltz, former NCAA track & field athlete from Southern Utah University who competed against June Eastwood, the first male athlete identifying as female to compete in DI cross country
- Jen Sey, 7x National Team Member gymnast, 1986 National Champ, founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics
- Cynthia Monteleone, Team USA world champion track athlete who competed against a male athlete at the World Championship
- Barbara Ehardt, former 15-year career NCAA Division I women’s basketball coach; former NCAA basketball player; and current member of the Idaho House of Representatives from the 33rd district
- Macy Petty, former NCAA volleyball player and Concerned Women for America ambassador
- And more!
Click HERE to see upcoming stops on the tour.
Direct all press inquiries to [email protected].
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