A decision from a Biden-appointed judge earlier this week paves the way for gender-confused boys to continue competing against girls in California. 
The female federal judge on Monday blocked a lawsuit from the Trump administration challenging California policies allowing males to compete on female sports teams. The suit accused California of violating Title IX by failing to keep boys who identify as transgender off of girls&#8217; sports teams. 
The judge did not rule on whether California policies violated Title IX, but instead argued the state did not receive proper notice they could lose federal funding if they did not change their policies. In 2025, California&#8217;s Department of Education received about $44 billion in federal aid. 
“Even assuming Title IX requires what Plaintiff contends, [California Department of Education] lacked clear notice of that requirement as a condition of federal funding. The Spending Clause therefore bars Plaintiff from enforcing the asserted funding condition in this action,” U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.978008/gov.uscourts.cacd.978008.54.0.pdf">wrote</a> Monday. 
“Plaintiff seeks to enforce a categorical exclusion rule as a condition of federal funding. The Spending Clause inquiry is therefore whether Title IX and its implementing regulations clearly required California to exclude transgender girls from girls’ teams and sex-separated facilities,” she added. 
The lawsuit was filed in July 2025 by the Justice Department against the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation. The DOJ argued that California was breaking federal civil rights protections because Title IX entitled girls to have their own sports teams and private facilities. 
Responding to the decision, a spokesman for the Justice Department said that officials <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/09/01/us-news/doj-plans-to-renew-challenge-to-californias-transgender-sports-policy/">are</a> “disappointed by the Court’s order and remain committed to enforcing President Trump’s agenda of preventing boys from playing in girls’ sports.”
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon appeared to suggest further action from the Justice Department, <a href="https://x.com/AAGDhillon/status/2095008635029975091">noting</a> on X the decision came from a “California judge” and telling people to “stay tuned.” 
In her decision, Valenzuela argued that the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing states to keep sports teams separate on the basis of sex did not mean that all states were required to do so under Title IX. 
“The Court thus upheld the biological-sex eligibility rules before it without holding that Title IX requires every school to adopt the same rule,” she said. “The Court also declined to decide whether Title IX permits transgender girls to participate on girls’ and women’s teams.”
The Trump administration has challenged numerous states and school districts over their adoption of policies depriving young girls of private facilities and athletic teams. 
“The Justice Department will not stand for policies that deprive girls of their hard-earned athletic trophies and ignore their safety on the field and in private spaces,” Dhillon said at the time the lawsuit was filed. “Young women should not have to sacrifice their rights to compete for scholarships, opportunities, and awards on the altar of woke gender ideology.”

Female Athletes And Allies Rally In Washington DC On 50th Anniversary Of Title IX

Female Biden Judge Paves The Way For Boys To Dominate Girls’ Sports

california department of education

department of justice

harmeet dhillon

politics

title ix

transgender in sports

A little over a month ago, I stood on the steps of the Supreme Court as it announced its decisions in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. After nearly seven years of advocacy on this issue, it was gratifying to hear the highest court in the land affirm concerns that had been dismissed for years. The ruling finally gave states the clarity they had been fighting for and released protections for female athletes from the holding cells of courtrooms, including in my home state of Arizona.
That clarity is too hard-won to treat carelessly.
For years, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) and female athletes like me fought to establish what should have been obvious from the beginning: women deserve athletic opportunities that are fair, safe, and meaningful. Since Idaho passed the first Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in 2020, 26 other states have now acted to protect women’s sports.
The road to 27 was long, unpopular, and then suddenly obvious.
When CWALAC first began lobbying for women’s-only sports laws, we were vilified as “alarmist.” Few people took our concerns seriously. But momentum grew quickly after Idaho State Rep. Barbara Ehardt passed the first-of-its-kind legislation, and the Lia Thomas/NCAA scandal forced the issue into the national conversation.
If one institution should have learned this lesson by now, it is the NCAA. The organization entrusted with governing collegiate athletics repeatedly failed to protect female athletes when it mattered most. Its record should make all of us skeptical that we can simply trust sports institutions to get this right on their own.
That is why the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA) deserves serious scrutiny.
PCSA is the U.S. Senate’s attempt to standardize Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules across the country. I understand its importance; student-athletes deserve clear and predictable rules. But clarity in this area could come at the expense of clarity in another.
Some of the strongest warnings about PCSA’s preemption are coming from the people on the front lines defending Fairness in Women’s Sports laws. The attorneys general from Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Utah, Oklahoma, and Alaska <a href="https://x.com/AGToddRokita/status/2085920871831474513/photo/2">wrote</a> to the Senate saying their recent victory at the Supreme Court that upheld women’s sports protections “might now be undone by the preemption provisions contained in S. 4668” and PCSA provisions are “unacceptably unclear and risk re-opening the floodgates of litigation.” Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that has defended female athletes in court, agreed with these concerns and offered a “small edit” to the bill’s text that amounted to 15 total <a href="https://x.com/KristenWaggoner/status/2085889725240398256?s=20">characters</a>. ADF said these edits &#8220;would tighten the language against efforts by activist judges to misinterpret the bill’s intent: addressing issues in college sports without preempting state laws that keep men out of women’s sports.”
After seven years of litigation, injunctions, and uncertainty for female athletes, we should not be debating whether Congress can spare 15 characters to make its intent unmistakable. If the authors truly believe it wouldn’t affect women’s protections, then clarifying that should not change anything.
The years of inevitable injunctions against women’s sports protections could be disastrous for female athletics. For every one man who competes in women’s sports, hundreds of female athletes are robbed of fair and safe competition.
This is also why I am wary of simply trusting the NCAA or any other governing body to resolve these questions later. The NCAA had years to demonstrate leadership in protecting female athletes. Instead, female athletes were pushed to the sidelines, silenced, and expected to accept the discriminatory practices of the NCAA.
As a female athlete who played against a man during my recruiting process to play college volleyball, I understand this all too well. That’s why I’ve testified in support of women’s sports laws from South Carolina and New Hampshire to Colorado and beyond. I understand the importance of NIL. I understand the need for a cohesive framework to sustain these incredible opportunities. But we cannot rush it at the expense of other pressing issues facing sports governance.
I strongly urge the Senate to reconcile what is at stake. I am not asking Congress to choose between NIL regulation and female athletes. I am asking Congress to get both right. A clear path forward to protect female athletes was too hard-won to jeopardize haphazardly.
Do not make female athletes pay the price for getting NIL right.
***
Macy Petty Charles, a former NCAA volleyball player, is legislative strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation&#8217;s largest public policy women&#8217;s organization dedicated to promoting Biblical values and Constitutional principles in public policy. On X: @CWforA

COLLEGE BASKETBALL: MAR 08 SEC Conference Women’s Tournament – Missouri vs Kentucky

Why The NCAA Can’t Be Trusted To Protect Women’s Sports And What The Senate Can Do About It

ncaa

protect college sports act

west virginia v bpj

women's sports

Stephanie Brown pulled out her phone to record her 15-year-old daughter’s wrestling match just like she had done hundreds of times before. Born and raised in Washington state, Kallie Keeler had been wrestling since she was four years old, following in the footsteps of her three older brothers, and had gotten quite good at the sport by the beginning of her sophomore season, earning the number two spot on her high school team.
Only this match was different. Stephanie recognized immediately that something was wrong with her daughter. She saw visible distress on Kallie’s face as her opponent pinned her down, heard Kallie shout out in pain, and then watched as she got up from the mat, crying. None of this was normal.
Unbeknownst to Stephanie or her daughter, Kallie had been matched with a male wrestler at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association-sponsored girls’ wrestling tournament in December 2025. While pinning Kallie to the mat, the male wrestler sexually assaulted her.
Leaving the mat, Kallie was in shock. Another team’s coach approached her and informed her that her opponent was male. Despite observing how distraught Kallie was, her own coaches walked away. They did nothing to help her.
Kallie told her mom about the egregious assault, and they both felt betrayed by what happened and by the fact that Kallie had been forced to wrestle a male opponent without their knowledge or consent. The WIAA and school officials knew Kallie’s opponent was male, hid that critical piece of information, and matched the athlete against Kallie anyway. Had Kallie known her opponent was male, she would not have taken the mat — and this sexual assault would not have happened.
Stephanie quickly reported the sexual assault in writing, with video evidence, to the coaches and school staff. But they did nothing. Despite Washington state’s mandatory 48-hour reporting law, officials ignored the incident until it became a national news story weeks later. Even now, they refuse to take it seriously — to deal with the assault, to reserve girls’ sports for girls, or even to give parents the necessary notice so they can keep their daughters safe. In late July, prosecutors finally decided to charge Kallie’s principal and athletic director with a gross misdemeanor for not reporting the incident in a timely manner, but beyond the Trump administration&#8217;s pending federal Title IX investigation, no official has been held accountable for what happened to Kallie on the mat.
That is why Kallie and Stephanie had no choice but to sue state officials. Alliance Defending Freedom, where I serve as senior counsel, filed <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/high-school-female-athlete-sues-after-unknowingly-wrestling-male-who-sexually-assaulted-her-during-match/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">a lawsuit</a> on their behalf to seek justice for a young girl who simply loves wrestling and ended up being sexually assaulted because of political cowardice. The court scheduled the first hearing for August 18.
Washington state officials insist on pushing gender ideology at all costs — even at the expense of girls’ safety and privacy. The school district’s written policy prohibits notifying parents or anyone else when their daughters will be matched against male athletes. Furthermore, district officials told Stephanie and Kallie that they won’t change their policy. If Kallie returns to wrestling, she can be matched against a male athlete again without notice and over her objection.
Officials refused to protect this young girl by informing her ahead of time that she’d be wrestling a boy, and then, after she was sexually assaulted, they failed to defend her by keeping silent about the assault. They also refuse to protect her and other girls in the future.
It is appalling that, upon hearing Kallie’s story, some, including elected officials in the state, brushed off the sexual assault as a known risk of wrestling, suggesting this is something she consented to when she signed up to participate in a contact sport — as though a 15-year-old girl can consent to sexual assault — digital penetration — just for participating in a high school sport.
Washington state failed this family, but it isn’t too late to protect other girls. State officials must change their policies and prioritize girls’ safety in sports. No girl should have to unknowingly wrestle a boy. And no mother should have to watch her daughter compete and not be able to protect her because she doesn’t know her daughter is wrestling a boy.
At a bare minimum, parents must be notified before their daughters are matched against male opponents. Every parent has the right to make informed decisions about their children’s safety.
Kallie’s story is proof of the grave harm caused by lying about biology. This must end — otherwise, girls will continue getting hurt and violated. We are urging the court to require state officials to change their policy to ensure that girls’ privacy and safety are protected when they compete in the sports they love.
***
Kate Anderson is senior counsel with <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://x.com/ADFLegal">@ADFLegal</a>) and leads its Center for Parental Rights.

keeler7-scaled

The Price of Political Cowardice Is A Girl’s Sexual Assault

alliance defending freedom

school policy

washington state

The Senate is expected to vote Friday on a bipartisan bill designed to bring order to college athletics, but Republicans are divided over whether it could inadvertently undermine state laws barring biological males from competing in women&#8217;s sports. 
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) warned Wednesday that the legislation contains a “big, big problem,” arguing its federal preemption language could override Missouri&#8217;s law targeting transgender-identifying athletes.  
“I’m against men in women’s sports, and Missouri has a law that bans men in women’s sports that applies to collegiate eligibility,” Hawley said. “My concern is that this bill as it’s currently drafted would overturn Missouri law. Twenty-seven states have similar bans. This is something that needs to be fixed.” 
Hawley has filed an amendment with Sens. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) that would explicitly exempt state and local laws prohibiting biological males from competing in women&#8217;s sports from the bill&#8217;s federal preemption provision.
Tuberville called the protection of women’s athletics “the civil rights issue of our time.” 
Banks added, “As the father of three daughters, I can’t support any legislation that would preempt Indiana’s law. This amendment would make sure the Protect College Sports Act protects female athletes.” 
The bill was primarily written to establish national standards for name, image, and likeness (NIL) payments and preempt the patchwork of state NIL laws governing college athletics.
But Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who coauthored the bill with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), rejected Hawley&#8217;s criticism.
“That’s simply inaccurate,” Cruz <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6012731-senate-gop-internal-squabbles/">said</a>. “The legislation explicitly has language, number one, that nothing in the bill alters Title IX in any way. And, number two, it explicitly says on eligibility that you can be blocked from eligibility for violating a state law. That was written very deliberately to avoid disturbing the twenty-seven states that have acted to protect women’s sports.” 
Despite Hawley’s questions, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) filed a cloture motion to advance the bill to a vote on Friday. 
&#8220;I&#8217;m hoping it can be worked out,&#8221; Thune said. “I know what it’s about and I think … some of our members have pretty good answers to some of the questions he’s raising,” 
Thune added, “I’m hopeful that we’ll have the bipartisan votes to get on the bill.” 
The legislation is backed by <a href="https://www.commerce.senate.gov/press/rep/release/committee-releases-revised-protect-college-sports-act/">28</a> collegiate athletic conferences and more than 370 colleges and universities across all 50 states.

NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament – Final Four – Phoenix

GOP Split Over Whether College Sports Bill Threatens Women’s Sports

college sports

josh hawley

ted cruz

women in sports

Fever is spreading in the WNBA.
The fever that is the woke-mind virus, that is.
Since Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham fearlessly spoke about protecting “young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men” in an <a href="https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/49306657/sophie-cunningham-finger-point-indiana-fever-wnba">ESPN</a> story, some WNBA coaches and fans have become unhinged at Cunningham’s comments and the deluge of support she’s receiving from fans.
After Cunningham was raked over the coals by the media for her commonsense view, two young girls attending a WNBA game wearing XX-XY Athletics shirts in support of Sophie were subjected to intense harassment by a WNBA team co-owner. Fans even cussed them out. That team co-owner was rightfully fined and suspended for five games by the league.
Then, coach after coach in the WNBA has exposed just how out of touch they are with fairness in women’s sports. Fever coach Stephanie White said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know that I would say I&#8217;m educated enough from a scientific standpoint. I don&#8217;t ever believe that exclusion is the answer.” Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve wore a “Trans Kids Belong” shirt in a game against the Fever. Golden State coach Natalie Nakase said, “I’m all about women, little girls deserving to play, and that includes trans women. So I’m all about inclusivity.”
The Babylon Bee perhaps said it best: “<a href="https://babylonbee.com/news/wnba-coaches-stumped-as-to-what-the-w-stands-for">WNBA Coaches Stumped as to What the ‘W’ Stands For.</a>”
This controversy in the WNBA points to the larger issue at hand: biological women’s safety and fairness in sport are at risk when there are no policies to protect them.
Concerned Women for America has <a href="https://concernedwomen.org/wnba-must-adopt-policy-to-protect-fairness-in-sport-based-on-sex-says-cwalac/">called on</a> the WNBA to adopt a policy that clarifies only biological women can play basketball in the league. The WNBA needs to stand behind biological female players and ensure that it will not subject any players or fans to viewpoint discrimination.
Ultimately, the WNBA needs to look in the mirror and do some soul-searching about what it stands for – fairness in women’s sports or not?
One would think this need not be defined, but this is 2026, after all.
Activism in the WNBA has poisoned the league for years. But a new generation of athletes is being inspired by Sophie Cunningham&#8217;s courage. It’s time for the WNBA to defend them, not the activism that defends biological males stealing their opportunities.
The WNBA is far from the only sports governing body that needs to protect biological females from competing against trans-identifying men. The NCAA, USOPC, USA Volleyball, USA Cycling, USA Rowing, USA Ultimate, and USA Gymnastics all need to adopt clear policies that participation in the women’s category is for natal females only and to enforce a policy for all athletes.
For the record, it is not transphobic to insist on women’s sports being for biological women only. It is no secret that science, biology, and common sense show the unfair advantage biological male athletes have against female athletes. Women and girls have <a href="https://hecheated.org/">lost</a> the podium, scholarships, prize money, and medals due to competition from trans-identifying men.
Congress is rightfully getting involved. Congresswoman Claudia Tenney’s “<a href="https://tenney.house.gov/media/press-releases/congresswoman-tenney-introduces-no-goodwill-harming-women-act">No Goodwill for Harming Women Act</a>” proposes financial penalties for professional franchises allowing biological men in women’s sports. Congress should also pass the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” and the “Protection of Women in Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.”
With midterms underway, candidates must support biological female athletes — the issue will not go away until females are fully protected in sport.
A new <a href="https://concernedwomen.org/new-cwa-poll-on-midterm-issues-finds-major-support-for-womens-issues/">CWA poll</a> found that over 69% (69.3%) of Americans believe it is very or somewhat important in deciding who to vote for in this election that candidates oppose forcing female athletes to participate in sports and share locker rooms with biological boys/men identifying as girls/women.
It is an outrage that two young girls attending a WNBA game were harassed for supporting Sophie, who is unafraid to say what everyone is thinking and completely in tune with the spirit of sport.
To avoid further chaos, bias, and potential harm against WNBA players and their fans, the WNBA should immediately adopt a policy that establishes only biological women can play basketball in the league. That’s the only winning play.
***
Penny Young Nance is CEO and President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, and author of 7 Rules for Success in Business and Life: A Woman’s Guide. <a href="https://concernedwomen.org/">https://concernedwomen.org/</a>

Indiana Fever v Seattle Storm

After Sophie Cunningham Speaks Up For Girls, The WNBA Speaks Up For Delusion

2026 midterm election

opinion

sophie cunningham

transgender athletes in womens sports

wnba

UpstreamSophie

How Sophie Cunningham Became The WNBA’s Biggest Target

riley gaines

sports

transgender athletes in women sports

A new proposal from Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) seeks to keep gender-confused boys off of girls&#8217; sports teams and out of their locker rooms.  
The <a href="https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/files/9DB266B1-2A2D-4FCF-B948-A031AC31AB5C">bill</a> introduced Tuesday by Blackburn and 10 other GOP senators would tie federal funding to whether schools protect girls from discrimination based on biological reality. The bill seeks to codify language into federal law that makes it clear that discrimination protections under Title IX are based on sex and not sexual orientation or so-called gender identity. 
“The Biden administration weaponized Title IX to force women to compete with men in sports and allow men to invade women’s spaces,” Blackburn told The Daily Wire. “Thankfully, President Trump restored common sense in Title IX, and now Congress must codify these protections for women into law to prevent future abuse.”
Blackburn’s proposal, called the “Title IX Clarification Act,” would ensure that discrimination under the provision is based “on the biological reality of sex” and would make federal funding contingent on recognizing that understanding. 
The bill’s introduction comes amid a nationwide controversy fueled by WNBA player Sophie Cunningham’s stance on keeping gender-confused boys out of girls&#8217; sports. 
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” Cunningham said in a recent interview with ESPN, drawing backlash from fellow WNBA players and coaches.
Her comments have angered WNBA fans and even led to pro-trans advocacy from Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-coach-protests-sophie-cunningham-with-pro-trans-shirt?author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=10&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=WNBA+Coach+Protests+Sophie+Cunningham+With+Pro-Trans+Shirt">recently</a> wore a “Trans Kids Belong” shirt during a game. 
The Biden administration attempted to <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/03/11/2021-05200/guaranteeing-an-educational-environment-free-from-discrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-including">expand</a> the traditional understanding of Title IX to include “gender identity” as being protected under the definition of sex. Critics argued that interpretation would force schools from keeping sports teams, bathrooms, and locker rooms separate on the basis of sex. 
Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump officially <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/initial-rescissions-of-harmful-executive-orders-and-actions/">rescinded</a> Biden’s interpretation of Title IX and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/">directed</a> federal agencies to protect from sex-based discrimination, not gender identity. The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-protects-womens-sports-in-landmark-ruling">recently held</a> in a landmark decision that states did not violate Title IX if they had laws in place keeping boys out of girls’ sports. 
“They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America.”
Blackburn said her legislation would bring common sense back to federal discrimination law. 
“The Title IX Clarification Act would ensure that common sense, not leftist ideology, governs federal education funding tied to Title IX requirements to protect young women,” she said. 
Other lawmakers backing the proposal are Senators Katie Britt (R-AL), Jim Justice (R-WV), Ted Budd (R-NC), Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Rick Scott (R-FL), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Tim Sheehy (R-MT).
A House version of the proposal was introduced in May 2026 by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) and advanced through the Committee on Education and Workforce. It is backed by conservative groups like the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the American Principles Project.

Indiana Fever v Golden State Valkyries

Sophie Cunningham’s Trans Sports Stance Could Become Federal Law

marsha blackburn

Nothing screams &#8220;support women&#8217;s basketball&#8221; quite like a team co-owner berating two 16-year-old girls until they cry.
That&#8217;s the state of the WNBA in 2026, folks. It&#8217;s honestly a mystery wrapped in an enigma why the sport isn&#8217;t more popular.
That&#8217;s exactly what unfolded Tuesday night during the Seattle Storm&#8217;s game against the Indiana Fever. Two teenagers wearing XX-XY Athletics shirts. This is a brand built around — and I know this is a radical concept — protecting women&#8217;s sports for actual women.The two girls were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-co-owners-tirade-at-sophie-cunningham-fans-ends-in-fallout">told</a> they were &#8220;f*cking insane&#8221; for holding a sign that read &#8220;Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls.&#8221;
This comes amid the fervor surrounding Sophie Cunningham, the Fever guard who&#8217;s made it her personal mission to protect teammate Caitlin Clark from the maniacal manhandlers who seem more intent on trying to cause her real, serious harm than on trying to win games. And, more controversially, Cunningham says out loud that biological men shouldn&#8217;t play women&#8217;s sports.
Isn&#8217;t it a shame that this now counts as a hot take? We&#8217;ll let 10-year-olds chop off their God-given goods, no problem; but suggest that a 16-year-old girl shouldn&#8217;t have to guard a grown man in the paint, and suddenly it’s as if you screamed “bomb” on an airplane.
Naturally, the brave teens (braver than me: I wouldn’t attend a WNBA game nor willingly set foot in Seattle) had to put their signs away to protect the fragile feelings of the fruity vanguard, while the multi-colored, rainbow marxist next to them kept her neon “No Hate In These United States” sign up the entire game.
I don’t know, girly pop.
It seemed pretty hateful to me when the co-owner of the team, Celeste Keaton, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DbZou8oMQEL/?hl=en">swore at and belittled</a> the two young athletes who paid to be there, for the crime of supporting fairness in the sport she claims to have devoted her life to. Newsflash for Klass-less Keaton: If fans wanted to watch burly, powerful bundles of XY chromosomes play basketball, that league already exists. It’s called the NBA. It&#8217;s on most nights at 9 p.m.
The highly agitated and morally bankrupt co-owner has been fined and suspended for the next five home games. But to me, this actually seems more like a reward than a punishment; not having to watch the Seattle Storm night after night, but then again, I&#8217;m a straight conservative.
It also seemed pretty hateful when a grown man in a WNBA hat (interesting choice) heckled the same girls, yelling &#8220;get out&#8221; and &#8220;security, take out the trash&#8221; while they cried.
Is it possible to just carve Washington State out of America? Could we give them to Canada? The benevolent folk can apply for residency in other states, using multiple forms of ID, of course, but the rest can stay in their sad, vampire-ridden land and float off into the northern Pacific. Our military&#8217;s schedule is pretty light right now; I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;ve got time to blow a gorge across the state line.
Sure, the scenery is stunning. But so is a Renaissance painting of a plague, but you wouldn’t want to live inside it. Seattle literally ranks #1 in adults having feelings of depression. I don&#8217;t make the rules; I just read the Census data. Some things are worth losing the view for. Baby, meet bathwater.
Oh well, I’m just glad Sophie, her teammates, and those young ladies made it out alive. But they didn’t leave with their heads hung low. The Fever crushed Keaton’s Storm clouds 105-95, marking Indiana&#8217;s fourth consecutive 100-point game — a new WNBA record for the longest such streak in league history. Clark led the crusade with 32; Cunningham flipped the booing crowd the bird by shooting 3-for-3 from three in the first quarter. 
 
<a href="https://x.com/MAGAVoice/status/2070740086074102191">We see you, Sophie. We see you.</a>
And increasingly, so does the rest of the country. Her Adidas partnership has become one of the league&#8217;s bigger commercial stories this season, with her player-exclusive sneaker selling out within hours of its release. Turns out normie Americans like common sense, Title IX, and rooting for pretty blondes who don’t apologize for either.
The WNBA doesn&#8217;t have a talent problem. It has a leadership problem. When your co-owners are cursing out teenage girls for saying men shouldn&#8217;t play women&#8217;s sports, in a women&#8217;s sports league, you&#8217;ve stopped being an inclusive institution and started being an ideological one; and ideological institutions don&#8217;t grow audiences, they shed them.
Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham are giving this league its biggest audience ever. Its own ownership keeps handing that audience reasons to watch literally anything else.
Fix that, and the mystery solves itself.

WNBA: JUL 18 New York Liberty at Indiana Fever

They Came For Caitlin Clark – Will The WNBA Destroy Sophie Cunningham Next?

caitlin clark

Celeste Keaton

DW Opinion

indiana fever

Seattle Storm

When Megan Rapinoe recently went on “The View,” she went on a tirade about trans-identifying athletes supposedly being excluded from women’s sports. Namely, she <a href="https://x.com/TheView/status/2079664476786446775">posed a question</a> regarding men in women’s sports that the media has since buzzed about: “Unsafe from who?” I immediately had an answer: me.
In 2022, I was <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/payton-mcnabb/">struck</a> in the head by a volleyball spiked by a male athlete competing on the opposing girls’ team. The impact knocked me unconscious and caused a traumatic brain injury that ended my athletic career — and still affects me today.
I’ve spent my early 20s <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2024/05/24/advisory-our-bodies-our-sports-summer-2024-bus-tour-take-back-title-ix-protect-womens-sports/">traveling</a> across the country, speaking up for women’s sports. Along the way, I’ve been <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2026/07/13/trump-title-ix-trans-women-sports-girls-equality-college-university-christopher-newport-california-lutheran-university/">accused</a> of “co-opting” feminist language and have dealt with unrelenting hatred and even <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/sports/transgender-comedian-faces-backlash-mocking-payton-mcnabbs-brain-injury-from-male-volleyball-player">comedy skits</a> about me.
That’s why I was grateful to see WNBA player <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7464960/2026/07/22/sophie-cunningham-trans-comments-womens-sports/">Sophie Cunningham refuse</a> to back down when she defended women’s sports, calling it a “common-sense” position and even standing squarely planted on her original stance, <a href="https://x.com/realDailyWire/status/2080310506997305817?s=20">saying</a>, “I said what I said.”
Another accusation hurled recently at our efforts argues that women like me have been <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2026/07/13/trump-title-ix-trans-women-sports-girls-equality-college-university-christopher-newport-california-lutheran-university/">distracted</a> from the “real” issues facing female athletes. According to Ms. Magazine, we should be talking about “fewer opportunities, unequal funding and facilities access, and hundreds of unresolved discrimination complaints” from female athletes. That position misses the point entirely. I can unequivocally say that no amount of additional funding, nor an upgraded facility, would have prevented my volleyball injury.
The suggestion that advocates like me don’t care about funding or participation because we also defend fairness creates a false choice. Women are capable of caring about more than one issue at a time.
We can fight for better resources while also insisting that girls deserve a level playing field. I would even argue that those goals depend on each other.
If roster spots, conference championships, podium finishes, scholarships, and records can all be taken by male athletes competing in the women’s division, then equal funding alone cannot create equal opportunities.
Female athletes have fought for decades to secure equal opportunities under Title IX — and yes, the ups and downs of funding and participation do matter. Participation in women’s sports has gone from <a href="https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/education/title-ix-and-the-rise-of-female-athletes-in-america/">3.7% to 40% since 1976</a>. But equal opportunity based on sex means next to nothing if girls are expected to compete in a category that is no longer reserved for them.
The fact of the matter is that Title IX wasn’t created to build nicer locker rooms or buy better uniforms. It was enacted because lawmakers acknowledged biological reality: women, who are physically different from men, deserved a category for themselves to promote safe, equal, and fair educational opportunities (sports included). Protecting that category is Title IX’s purpose.
The only thing that would have protected me was preserving the girls’ category for girls only. Independent Women’s “<a href="https://ourbodiesoursports.com/">Our Bodies, Our Sports</a>” and “Her Game. Her Legacy.” initiatives have never been about degrading people struggling with gender dysphoria — it’s been about acknowledging biological differences between males and females for everyone’s safety and equal opportunity.
Male puberty <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/competition-report/">produces</a> measurable advantages in strength, speed, endurance, and power. That reality should not be ignored, especially if we are asking females to go up against them in contact sports. Moreover, sports are inherently <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/competition-report/">zero-sum</a>, so even just one man on a women’s team means a woman has lost a roster spot and an opportunity to compete.
The Supreme Court just <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2026/07/01/scotus-snapshot-womens-sports-decision/">affirmed</a> this concept, recognizing “woman” as it was meant in the 1970s: as biologically female. States have legitimate reasons to separate athletic competition based on biological sex.
Yet radical advocates (and their media allies, like Ms. Magazine and Megan Rapinoe) continue to respond with inflammatory claims that protecting women’s sports will somehow lead to <a href="https://feminist.org/news/supreme-court-delivers-blow-to-transgender-student-athletes/">“genital inspections”</a> of girls. That rhetoric may make the headlines, but there is no factual basis to their claims.
No one has ordered invasive inspections of high-school or collegiate athletes. Schools have operated sex-separated athletics based on biological differences for decades without requiring such measures. Athletic eligibility has long been determined through ordinary school records and administrative processes.
The scare tactics are meant to distract from the real conversation.
I don’t want better facilities and shiny, bright new equipment if I have to sacrifice my safety. I don’t want more scholarships for “women” if female athletes are no longer able to qualify for them alongside their male competitors.
I’m still here fighting because what happened to me shouldn’t happen to anyone else — ever. I’ve spoken with women who’ve lost titles, podium spots, and hometown records because of this issue — and none of them were asking for special treatment. All we’ve been asking for is exactly what Title IX promised over 50 years ago: a fair chance to compete.
***
Payton McNabb is a sports ambassador for Independent Women and former three-sport high school athlete who <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/profile/payton-mcnabb/">turned tragedy into triumph</a> after a traumatic brain injury ended her athletic future.

Sue Bird Honored With Statue Outside Of Climate Pledge Arena

The Answer To Megan Rapinoe’s Question Is Standing Right Here

Megan Rapinoe

the view

Transgender Athletes

Wellesley College in Massachusetts is a member of the “Seven Sisters” – a group of highly-selective all-women’s colleges that was founded to give women an Ivy League education when such institutions were reserved for men. But today, Wellesley is admitting biological men who identify as women.
This is why my organization, Defending Education (DE), filed a <a href="https://defendinged.org/complaints/defending-education-files-civil-rights-complaint-against-wellesley-college-for-violations-of-title-ix/">civil rights complaint</a> with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights: because this “sister” just violated Title IX in the name of “inclusivity.”
DE’s complaint underscores the ultimate irony of the modern gender movement: universities formed to empower women have made the conscious decision to validate males instead.
Historically, enrollment at a Seven Sisters’ school was a sign of female excellence and independence. It was an honor reserved for the most impressive American women.
Today, it means being forced to forgo your comfort (and possibly your safety) because your school values the feelings of men over yours. It means mandatory sharing of dormitories, locker rooms, bathrooms, and sports teams with biological males – assuming, of course, that a boy didn’t steal your admission spot in the first place.
It’s shameful that Wellesley College has retained the privileges and title of an “all women’s” institution, despite abandoning its founding principles.
The school’s 2015 decision to admit biological men runs completely counter to its mission to “educate women who will make a difference.” Women seeking a female-only environment are being betrayed by the very people entrusted with the college’s legacy.
Our complaint notes that Wellesley College is in clear violation of Title IX requirements necessary for single-sex status and federal funding; its decision to admit biological men – and simultaneously decline admission to biological women who identify as men – is discrimination on the basis of sex, pure and simple.
And given the $12 million in federal support Wellesley receives every year, perhaps the school should have considered the impact that flouting anti-discrimination laws might have on its bottom line.
Last May, Defending Education filed an Office for Civil Rights complaint against another Seven Sisters school, Smith College, for also admitting biological men. DE’s complaint highlighted Smith College’s blatant disregard for Title IX’s protections for single sex spaces, President Trump’s recent executive orders banning gender ideology, and federal caselaw that affirms the need for single-sex spaces. Our complaint also noted that Smith College is policing women’s speech to prioritize policies that erase women – and protections for them – entirely.
We were gratified when the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Smith College earlier this year – and it’s our hope that the Department might take a hard look at Wellesley College as well.
We’ve filed these complaints with the goal of ending the Seven Sisters’ erasure of women and encouraging them to uphold their founding values. In addition to Smith and Wellesley, Mount Holyoke College, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard College also allow biological men who identify as “transgender women” to enroll and share private spaces with biological women. Like Smith and Wellesley, these schools receive millions of dollars in federal funding and commit themselves to upholding the law when they do so.
These policies drive home the fact that gender activists continue to wield a heavy grip on American public life – despite the Trump administration’s valiant efforts – and that sustained effort is needed to dismantle these policies from coast to coast.
When the gender activism wave washed over America nearly two decades ago, many major corporations and educational institutions were bullied into eliminating female-only protections and spaces in the name of inclusivity. Today, an increasing number of Americans finally recognize the truth: that this prioritization of gender ideology over women’s rights is unfair, unsafe, and illegal.
Polling by the New York Times in 2025 found that nearly 80% of Americans (including 67% of Democrats) opposed biological men competing in women&#8217;s sports, while Pew found that almost <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/">50% of Americans</a> support determining admittance to female-only spaces based on biological sex, compared to just 26% of Americans who disagree. And nationwide, many major corporations are <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/04/11/ibm-reportedly-walks-back-diversity-policies-citing-inherent-tensions-here-are-all-the-companies-rolling-back-dei-programs/">backing away from DEI initiatives</a> and gender ideology as they sense public opinion turning on the issue.
Despite this broader societal backlash, institutions like Wellesley College remain captured by fringe activists – which is why decisive action by the federal government is needed to hold bad actors accountable.
DE’s complaint regarding Wellesley, and the ongoing federal investigation into Smith College, are designed to both protect female students and to send a clear message to schools everywhere: if you choose to prioritize gender activism over safety, fairness, and the law, there will be consequences.
***
Nicole Neily is the founder and president of <a href="http://defendinged.org/about">Defending Education</a>.

Wellesley College Admissions Challenged

Wellesley College Lays Bare The Hypocrisy Of The Left

Defending Ed

transgender

Wellesley College

Every Supreme Court term produces headlines. This one produced structural change — the kind that will shape how power works in Washington, D.C., in statehouses, and in your own community for years to come.
Start with the case that mattered most: Trump v. Slaughter. For 90 years, Congress could shield the heads of “independent” agencies — the Federal Trade Commission, and by extension dozens of similar bodies — from being fired by the president except for cause. The Court ended that, ruling that if an official exercises the president’s executive power, the president can remove him. In practice, that means voters who elect a president now have more say over the sprawling bureaucracy that regulates everything from consumer products to labor disputes, rather than leaving that power with unelected commissioners serving staggered terms.
A companion case, Trump v. Cook, carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve — Fed governors can be fired only for cause, a 5-4 compromise that Justice Barrett, in dissent, called out as arbitrary and going beyond what the Court needed to decide the case.
Women’s sports had one of their best days ever at the Court. In cases out of West Virginia and Idaho, all nine justices agreed that Title IX — the law that opened the door to girls’ athletics in the first place — doesn’t force states to let biological males compete on girls’ teams. A narrower 6-3 majority held that constitutional equal protection likewise allows states to protect female athletes. That means the 27 states that already protect single-sex sports are on solid legal ground, and cases are already wending their way to the Supreme Court asking whether equal protection and Title IX actually require the other 23 states to do so.
The Second Amendment kept winning, too. In Wolford v. Lopez, the Court struck down a Hawaii law that weaponized trespass law against concealed-carry permit holders: Instead of assuming that a valid permit holder could enter a business with his weapon unless told otherwise, Hawaii required businesses to explicitly invite him in first. The Court said that the law effectively criminalized ordinary daily life for lawful gun owners — a ruling that should also doom copycat laws in California and other blue states. In a separate case, the justices unanimously held that the government can’t strip someone’s gun rights merely because he’s an occasional marijuana user, absent any sign he’s actually dangerous.
The First Amendment had an outstanding term as well. The Court struck down Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” counseling, ruling that a state can’t let therapists affirm a client’s gender identity while banning them from helping a client move the other direction — that’s the government picking sides on a viewpoint, not regulating conduct.
Elsewhere, the Court protected a New Jersey pregnancy center’s right to keep its donor list private from a hostile state subpoena, and struck down limits on how much political parties can coordinate spending with their own candidates. The campaign finance ruling is the latest in a series of cases reaffirming that free speech includes the right to political speech, and it will likely shift fundraising and election spending back to the parties and away from outside groups and Super PACs.
The term also delivered a landmark election law decision: Louisiana v. Callais. The Court held that a Voting Rights Act lawsuit can’t succeed just by pointing to a correlation between race and party in a district — plaintiffs now need real evidence of intentional discrimination. The Court put that reasoning to work almost immediately in an emergency order reinstating Alabama’s congressional map, an order that invoked the “colorblind Constitution” — language borrowed from the first Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, and now, for the first time, adopted by a majority. In practice, this makes it harder to scurrilously repackage partisan gerrymandering claims with racial language. One disappointment: the Court left in place the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, though it noted Congress could set a firmer national rule if it chose to.
Immigration cases mostly went the government’s way, with the Court reading several statutes in commonsense, textualist terms — including a ruling that someone who is stopped at the border hasn’t yet “arrived in” the country, reaffirming that courts can’t second-guess the president’s determination not to exempt Haitian and Syrian immigrants from removal, and another making it easier to remove green-card holders who commit serious crimes. The exception was the birthright citizenship case, where the majority applied the traditional, broad meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause to cover the U.S.-born children of both illegal immigrants and temporary visitors. As an originalist matter, it was a difficult case, with both sides grappling with the historical evidence. Justice Thomas’s 91-page dissent masterfully presented a narrower view of the Clause, but even the dissenters concluded that the president’s executive order likely went further than the Constitution permits.
On the business side, the Court made it harder for trial lawyers to drag oil companies into friendly state courts over decades-old wartime production, ruling that those suits belong in federal court — a real check on the climate-litigation industry that’s grown up around this kind of lawsuit.
Not every case broke along predictable lines. In a dispute over the president’s tariff powers, originalist justices ended up on both sides — a useful reminder that originalism is a method, not a rubber stamp, and methods sometimes produce results conservatives don’t love.
The term produced a few decisions that disappointed the president or conservatives, but, taken as a whole, it stands as one of the most significant terms in memory for bringing the Court back to an originalist understanding of the Constitution. Presidential removal power, women’s sports, the First and Second Amendments, immigration enforcement, climate and election litigation abuse — the Court engaged all of it and got the lion’s share right. That’s not a disappointing term. That’s a historic one.
***
Carrie Severino is the president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Follow her on X <a href="https://www.twitter.com/@JCNSeverino">@JCNSeverino</a>

US-JUSTICE-SUPREME-COURT-GROUP-PHOTO

The Supreme Court Term That Handed Originalists One Of Their Best Years Yet

birthright citizenship

Election Laws

executive power

first amendment

Louisiana v. Callais

second amendment

supreme court

Trump v. Cook

Trump v. Slaughter

Wolford v. Lopez

For years, the transgender movement has demanded that Americans go along with an increasingly rigid orthodoxy — adopt its preferred language, accept its premises without question, and treat any hesitation as bigotry. Women&#8217;s sports is where that demand finally ran into a wall. It&#8217;s one thing to ask people to use a new name. It&#8217;s another to ask the parent watching her daughter lose a state title to a biological male, or the coach watching a girl get bumped from the roster, to pretend she isn&#8217;t seeing what she&#8217;s seeing. Anyone who&#8217;s played sports or watched their kids play them knows there are real, obvious physical differences between male and female athletes. This was always going to be the issue where the emperor&#8217;s lack of clothes became impossible to ignore — and the Supreme Court said so, decisively.
In a 6–3 decision covering both West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, the Court held that neither the Equal Protection Clause nor Title IX stops states from reserving women&#8217;s and girls&#8217; sports teams for biological females. Title IX was passed in 1972 to guarantee girls a place in athletics, after decades in which they&#8217;d been frozen out. It took chutzpah to argue, 50 years later, that the same law requires schools to let biological males take roster spots, scholarships, and trophies from the very girls it was written to protect. Six justices weren&#8217;t buying it.
West Virginia&#8217;s Save Women&#8217;s Sports Act and Idaho&#8217;s Fairness in Women&#8217;s Sports Act both define sex by biology and reserve girls&#8217; teams accordingly — common-sense laws that got tangled up in lower courts eager to strike them down. The Fourth Circuit ruled against West Virginia, while the Ninth Circuit blocked Idaho&#8217;s law as unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause.
The Supreme Court reversed both. Writing for the majority, Justice Kavanaugh noted that Title IX explicitly authorizes sex-specific sports teams. Under the Equal Protection Clause he applied intermediate scrutiny — the standard for sex-based classifications — and found that &#8220;safety and competitive fairness&#8221; are important government interests substantially served by sex-based eligibility rules. He rejected the idea that courts should referee, case by case, which biological males have suppressed their advantage enough through hormones to compete against girls — an &#8220;almost impossible task&#8221; to perform fairly. For intermediate scrutiny, the fact that men and women , as a group, differ so dramatically in size, strength, and general athletic ability is sufficient to allow laws separating sports to pass constitutional muster.
Kavanaugh&#8217;s opinion didn&#8217;t shy away from naming what&#8217;s actually at stake: &#8220;Sports are generally zero sum.&#8221; Every spot given to a male athlete on a girls&#8217; team is a spot, a starting position, or a medal taken from a girl. That&#8217;s not a hypothetical for Kavanaugh, who has coached his own daughters&#8217; basketball teams for years — known to his players as &#8220;Coach K.&#8221; Few justices were better positioned to write that sentence.
Justice Thomas, in concurrence, went further, writing that transgender status doesn&#8217;t trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny and that sex is &#8220;binary&#8221; and &#8220;immutable.&#8221; But the line worth remembering is the one where he names what&#8217;s really been at stake all along — not just sports, but whether Americans can be made to say things they know aren&#8217;t true: &#8220;To use language to obscure reality—to show &#8216;indifference regarding the truth&#8217;—is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens &#8216;as equal[s].'&#8221; The demand was never just for kindness toward people experiencing gender dysphoria — most Americans are happy to extend that. The demand was for everyone else to repeat a falsehood on command. Thomas just said, in a Supreme Court opinion, that no one has to.
Justice Gorsuch added that Title IX, as a Spending Clause statute, can&#8217;t bind states to obligations Congress never spelled out clearly. He also attempted to reconcile the decision with Bostock v. Clayton County — his much-maligned 2020 ruling that redefined &#8220;sex&#8221; under Title VII to include gender identity but never purported to govern locker rooms or sports teams.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, dissented in part, significantly acknowledging that sex in Title IX is binary, but arguing the equal protection claims should have gone back down for fact-finding on whether transgender athletes are &#8220;similarly situated&#8221; to biological girls — an invitation to years of litigation over hormone levels and athletic advantage.
Justice Jackson, in a separate dissent, argued Title IX should let students compete according to gender identity rather than biology. She added that &#8220;West Virginia&#8217;s law forces B. P. J. to live—in this case, to play—as a boy though she is a girl.&#8221;
It’s worth sitting with that, because four years ago, then-Judge Jackson sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and refused to define what a woman is because she wasn&#8217;t a biologist. That non-answer was widely mocked at the time, and fairly so. Now the same justice has no trouble declaring, as a matter of law, that a biological male is a girl. The biology didn&#8217;t get more complicated in the intervening four years. What changed is that this time, declining to answer wouldn&#8217;t have gotten her to the result she wanted.
This decision validates the laws already on the books in 27 states protecting girls&#8217; sports, and removes the legal cloud that&#8217;s hung over them since the Fourth and Ninth Circuit rulings. Expect more states to follow now that the Court has confirmed there&#8217;s no constitutional cliff on the other side.
But don&#8217;t expect the fight to end here. The ruling says states may limit girls&#8217; sports to biological females — not that they must. That leaves an opening for the next round of litigation: whether states that let biological males compete against girls are themselves exposing girls to sex discrimination under Title IX. If &#8220;safety and competitive fairness&#8221; justify excluding males from girls&#8217; sports, advocates will argue, then states that decline to exclude them may be the ones violating the law.
For now, though, this is a clean, important win — for the rule of law, for the plain meaning of a 1972 statute, and most of all for the thousands of girls whose roster spots, records, medals, and scholarships are no longer up for grabs.
***
Carrie Severino is the president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Follow her on X <a href="https://www.twitter.com/@JCNSeverino">@JCNSeverino</a>

Sadie Schreiner, a Transgender Track Athlete, Fights to Compete in Her Sport as a Sprinter

The Supreme Court Just Saved Women’s Sports

Save Women's Sports Act

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