WASHINGTON, D.C. — Our Bodies, Our Sports, the nation’s first and only coalition of women’s advocacy organizations fighting for fairness in women’s sports, issued a letter to NCAA President Charlie Baker and members of the NCAA Board of Governors demanding that the NCAA take immediate action to protect the integrity of women’s sports through single-sex competition.
Our Bodies, Our Sports is nationally recognized for its work standing up for female athletes, advocating for sports governing bodies to establish policies that prohibit male athletes from the women’s game, and creating the largest, most ideologically diverse women’s movement of our time.
Our Bodies, Our Sports represents tens of thousands of female athletes, Olympians, coaches, and women’s advocacy groups from across the political spectrum. The coalition members agree that “without single-sex competition, there can be no equal athletic opportunity,” and the letter renews calls for the NCAA to repeal all policies that allow male athletes to take trophies, roster spots, playing time, resources, and opportunities to compete from women.
The NCAA’s controversial and unscientific Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy continues to allow men to participate in women’s collegiate sports. In April 2024, following an influx of more than 7,000 female athletes writing personal letters to the NCAA regarding its discriminatory participation policy, the NCAA released a statement on its website that the policy was “under review” and that the NCAA would “continue to promote Title IX” and “ensure fair competition.” Despite overwhelming national support for keeping women’s sports female, the NCAA has yet to make any changes to its policy.
Our Bodies, Our Sports’ letter requests a meeting with NCAA President Charlie Baker and members of the board “to discuss the unjust and unfair consequences of current NCAA policies” ahead of or during the NCAA Convention — January 14-17 in Nashville, TN.
The letter, which can be read here, states, in part:
Do not allow another day to pass where women’s rights are pushed aside. We cannot witness another season of women forced into a position where they either have to forfeit games or participate in fundamentally unfair and unsafe competitions.
Renewed demands for the NCAA include:
- Repeal all policies and rules that allow male athletes to take roster spots on women’s teams and/or compete in women’s events;
- Establish and enforce the right of female athletes to participate in sports based on sex;
- Revoke any/all records set by male athletes competing in the female category and restore the female NCAA sports archives by erasing championship wins and/or individual performances that were male-influenced; and
- Require NCAA member institutions to provide single-sex locker rooms for female athletes.
Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition includes Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, Independent Women’s Forum, Independent Council on Women’s Sports, Women’s Declaration International USA, Champion Women, International Consortium on Female Sport, Concerned Women for America, Women’s Liberation Front, Independent Women’s Law Center, Young Women for America, Independent Women’s Voice, Independent Women’s Network.
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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.
