I was reliably assured by the liberal Media vanguard &amp; co. that transgender-identifying male athletes would have no effect whatsoever on female competitors in women&#8217;s sports. So forgive my confusion upon reading this <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/09/23/us-news/trans-athletes-have-stolen-nearly-2300-gold-medals-from-women-and-girls-in-the-us-report/?utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter">headline</a>:
<blockquote>Trans athletes have ‘stolen’ nearly 2,300 gold medals from women and girls in the US: report</blockquote>
Sigh. Oh, how I wish failed male athletes would stop treating our competitions like a retirement plan.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Trans athletes have &#8216;stolen&#8217; nearly 2,300 gold medals from women and girls in the US: report https://t.co/o1BFBt3KGi https://t.co/UMC0NvSspB
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://x.com/nypost/status/2102889650289299471?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
According to the conservative think tank Concerned Women for America, the ladies weren&#8217;t just ejected from their championship spots 2,293 times since the mid-1980s — they also forfeited more than $500,000 in prize money to the busty boys elbowing their way into the sports. In that span, these trans folk reportedly competed in more than 14,000 female sporting events, both amateur and professional.
A society in which the female gold medalist gets bumped to silver, the silver medalist bumped to bronze, and the bronze medalist bumped out of the running entirely, all because a biologically advantaged male decided to try his hand at womanhood, is not a society that can call itself a champion of female rights, equality, or progress. It&#8217;s regressive. It&#8217;s backward. It&#8217;s harmful.
And not just to their mental fortitude, confidence, and pride, but to their safety and well-being.
In the last few years alone, we&#8217;ve watched male athletes allegedly <a href="https://x.com/nypost/status/2065483320612233260/video/1">stick</a> their fingers into female athletes&#8217; bodies during high school wrestling matches. We&#8217;ve seen male students with facial hair and skin-tight uniforms outlining their God-given packages standing in girls&#8217; locker rooms, <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/boy-watched-girls-change-fairfax-county-public-schools-high-school-locker-room-new-complaint-gender-transgender-defense-of-freedom-institute-us-department-of-education-title-9-youngkin-spanberger">watching</a> 14-year-olds change for gym class. We&#8217;ve watched male athletes lingering in female locker rooms, <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2025/09/09/jurupa-schools-sued-over-transgender-athlete-by-3-girls-volleyball-players/">slapping</a> teammates&#8217; buttocks, making unwelcome sexual comments. The catalog of lady-dude disasters goes on and on. 

Yet in the face of these jarring statistics, the Left stays silent — except to call anyone who points them out a bigot.
We can be almost certain they&#8217;ll say very little about the half a million dollars awarded to men instead of deserving women, just as they said little when a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dylanmulvaney/video/7078445785700011310?lang=en">man</a> became the face of a tampon brand a few years back. All while they scream from the rooftops about <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DdR6pJthgz-/?hl=en">Sydney Sweeney</a> supposedly setting women back decades for a sports-betting ad highlighting her watermelons, for a company she&#8217;s actually invested in.
Because obviously, Sydney Sweeney is a detriment to female prowess in sports, but biological males outcompeting several thousand women? That’s no problem at all. 
Remember, they tried to tell us this was a rara avis. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) <a href="https://x.com/JudiciaryDems/status/1869082119840178200">said</a> Republicans opposing male athletes in female sports were pursuing a &#8220;vendetta against a small number of people.&#8221; Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), a man who identifies as a woman, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/us/politics/democrats-transgender-rights-moulton.html">called</a> it &#8220;an issue that impacts a handful of people in a handful of places.&#8221; Mara Keisling, a biological male who founded the National Center for Transgender Equality, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/385549/trans-sports-transgender-biden-harris-democrats-titleix">insisted</a>, &#8220;There aren&#8217;t trans athletes everywhere beating women. There are a lot of six-year-olds and 10-year-olds who just want to play soccer with their friends.&#8221;
Oh! They&#8217;re just six-year-old confused children who think they&#8217;re the opposite sex, wanting to run around with their friends. And conservatives are the evil bigots who won&#8217;t let the six-year-old play with his/her/their/shim’s companions. Of course. Our apologies.
Again: this is regression. This is an own-goal. This is something Americans shouldn&#8217;t have had to deal with if we&#8217;d simply called this movement what it is — a social contagion. One that resulted in calls for mass mutilation of confused children, a rewiring of our collective common sense to convince ourselves that children can leapfrog across the “gender spectrum” at will, and a demand from the loudest leftist loonies that if we didn’t bend the knee to their new reality, we’d be branded hateful and transphobic. 
Then the Left told us that if we didn&#8217;t let our children dismember themselves, they&#8217;d kill themselves. Finland followed the same bizarro, totalitarian script for a decade before pulling the plug in 2020 — and what do you know&#8230; it backfired profoundly, with a sharp rise in psychiatric illness among adolescents following these sex-alteration procedures. 
Shocker. 
When all is said and done, when the studies surface and the whistleblowers start whistling, conservatives will be proven right again, as they usually are. Breaking every social norm we&#8217;ve known, defying common sense, and undoing decades of female empowerment to capitulate to a small, convinced-they&#8217;re-not-who-God-made-them minority wasn&#8217;t just profoundly offensive. It was dangerous.
Just as the Left first sold abortion as &#8220;safe, legal, and rare,&#8221; only for that to mutate into &#8220;a fetus isn&#8217;t a baby at all, and it&#8217;s fine to end its life right up until birth because #mybodymychoice,&#8221; the trans-in-sports issue will keep mutating, maiming, and man-handling its way further in. 
They told us it was a &#8220;trap.&#8221; A rarity. An overblown GOP talking point manufactured to spread bigotry. Well, now we know it&#8217;s very real, ever-occurring, and the only ones actually trapped are the women in the locker room with the dude. Or the girls going toe-to-toe with Testosterone Timmy on the track.
I don&#8217;t care where biological males play sports or strip down. Just don&#8217;t do it on my teams or in my locker rooms. Women worked hard to build those spaces, and the bottom line is simple: if you have XY chromosomes, you don&#8217;t have the right to be in them.

CIF Southern Section Track and Field Finals

The Thing They Told Us Never Happens Just Happened Again

dick durbin

sarah mcbride

sydney sweeney

title ix

transgender athletes in women's sports

women's sports

On Thursday, I will return to Minneapolis to the Target Center – where I am not wanted – for the final Indiana Fever regular-season game of 2026. I was last there on August 2, when a man with a bullhorn harassed me, screaming obscenities in my ear.
It was my first WNBA game. I did not go as a tourist. I went to thank Sophie Cunningham.
In an ESPN interview, she said she wanted “to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” That was the whole of it. Empathy. Compassion. A grown woman saying little girls should not have to undress in front of, compete against, or lose to males. She did not call for anyone’s erasure. She did not demand the WNBA start sex-testing its own roster. She stood up for little girls.
The response was not debate. It was a pile-on. She was met with calls of Bigot. Transphobe. Grifter and future conservative pundit lining up her next career move. And of course, terrible basketball player.
These are the usual types of slurs reserved for women who notice reality.
Those of us who have been in this fight for years recognize the script. We know how lonely it gets when institutions, media, and your own community treat a sentence of truth as heresy. So women and girls and radical feminists and men with daughters and common sense, those on the Left and the Right and everything in between, started showing up at Fever games. Not to protest Sophie. To thank her.
In Seattle, 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson wore an XX-XY Athletics shirt and held a sign that read thank you. A Storm co-owner screamed at her so viciously that it brought Ahnaleigh to tears. Other attendees spat at the teenager. The shirt states a biological fact. That was enough to unleash their wrath. Anyone who challenges their worldview must be punished, silenced – even, especially perhaps, 16-year-old girls.
On August 2 in Minneapolis, the welcome for us was even worse. Protesters met a group of middle-aged women and teenage girls who had come to say the same two words: thank you. A man called us “c*nts” over and over again — the ugliest, most misogynistic word I know. He then tried to put his hands on Riley Gaines when she arrived. He put a bullhorn in our ears and would not let us speak, even to each other.
They are losing, and they are frantically deploying the same tactics of silencing, bullying, coercion, physical attacks – that they’ve been using for years to “win.” Only those tactics aren’t working anymore. We aren’t afraid. And we won’t be silenced.
One of the young athletes standing with us was Kendall Kotzmacher. She is not a symbol invented for a rally. She is a four-year letter winner from Hugo, Minnesota, a four-time All-Conference player, and First Team All-State as a senior. She transferred to White Bear Lake for her senior year to chase a state championship with her little sister. In the 2025 Class AAAA semifinal, she was behind the plate as catcher when Champlin Park sent a biological male to the mound — about six feet tall, with a man’s hands, a man’s frame, and a man’s power. She had to hit against him, too. The ball spun in a way no girl her age in Minnesota can produce. Her team scored two runs, the most anyone managed off him all postseason. It was not enough. In the last inning, he hit a half-swing double and set up the winning run. They lost 3–2. The championship she and her sister had dreamed about since they were little kids was gone.
Kendall has said she would have been fine losing to a team that got there fair and square. She was not fine losing to a male in a girls’ tournament. After the game, she fell into her sister’s arms and sobbed. The little girls she coaches asked why she was crying. She told them she hoped they would never have to understand. Her team had a record-breaking tournament. Kendall hit a home run that helped get them there. None of that was the story. The story was him. They were pushed aside in their own sport, on the day meant to celebrate female excellence.
When she spoke afterward, she was harassed and threatened. At that Minneapolis rally, a man with a megaphone told her — in front of her mother and her sister — that she should have been aborted. This is the movement that markets itself as kind, tolerant, and protective of the vulnerable.
Kendall is not finished. On September 23, she will be in Washington, D.C., for a Senate hearing on males competing in women’s sports. She submitted testimony. She is refusing to be silent — for her sister still playing in Minnesota, and for the10-year-olds she coaches.
On September 24, I will sit in that arena with Kendall and with Amy Sousa. Amy was recently thrown out of a Portland Thorns game before kickoff for wearing the same shirt Ahnaleigh wore in Seattle. She and her friends then went to The Sports Bra, a bar that advertises itself as a home for women’s sports. They ordered food. They faced the television. They did not engage other patrons. When the plates arrived, they were told to leave. Their shirts had “offended” people. The shirts say there are two sexes. They have come to mean something simpler: I stand for protecting women’s sports.
We are going back to watch the Fever in their final regular season game because we will not be pushed out of public life. The culture was taken with force — policy capture, institutional cowardice, social punishment, and the redefinition of woman as a feeling anyone can claim. We will take it back with the same stubbornness, but not with the same lies. We are speaking truth. We are standing up for women and girls. That is not a campaign against “trans.” It is a campaign for the categories that make sport, safety, and fairness possible.
Title IX was not written so males could take podiums, scholarships, and locker rooms. Little girls should not have to absorb the cost of an adult ideology.
Sophie Cunningham said that out loud and paid for it. Ahnaleigh paid for it. Kendall paid for it on a softball field and then again on a Minneapolis sidewalk. Amy paid for it at a soccer stadium and a women’s sports bar, and that was 10 years after full cancellation and ostracization from her community.
We have fought too hard and too long to surrender the category of woman because it offends the people who benefit from erasing it – the men who say they are women.
We are not giving up. We are going back. This is bigger than Sophie or any one player. It’s bigger than a t-shirt.
It is about whether girls still have a right to their own sports, their own spaces, and their own future. It’s about whether girls and women have the right to a firm boundary.
It’s about the truth; the fundamental truth of biological reality.
***
Jennifer Sey is the CEO of XX-XY Athletics. She is an author, filmmaker, and retired national champion gymnast.

WNBA: SEP 20 Washington Mystics at Indiana Fever

My Stand With Sophie Cunningham For Women And Girls In The Fight For Women’s Sports

opinion

sophie cunningham

transgender in sports

wnba

Okay ladies, huddle up. You’re probably hearing a lot of buzz about who qualifies as a “real” female athlete in women’s sports. Does it count if you happen to be frolicking in the nude with strategically placed footballs for a betting platform? The internet will be the judge of that. 
By this point, you may be able to recall Sydney Sweeney’s scantily clad <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp0T184hVY0">Novig ad</a> as she beats the “sports … sports … sports” drum backed by a funky Anderson. Paak beat. “You can’t trade this, I just look good here,” she says while draped over a billiard table in nothing but Novig-branded tighty-whities. 
“No betting on wars or deaths, and no politics,” she assures us. Glad we cleared up the meaning of “sports.” Tying a bow on the brand for which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/style/sydney-sweeney-sports-ad-novig.html">she’s an equity partner</a>, she says, “Just you, your takes, and sports.” Like every other Sydney Sweeney promo (does she ever not flaunt the goods?), the ad did its job. Cue 40 million views and the obligatory outragepocalypse.
Four-time Australian Olympic gold medalist <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sydney-sweeney-ad-novig-02491031050ed505840b8bda8ac2fdb3">Ariarne Titmus</a> posted to Instagram, “I can’t describe how infuriated I feel … How do we live in a world where monetizing a woman’s body and sexualizing women’s sport is still a thing?”
Just after a race, British sprinter <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DdRI7oKCpOH/?img_index=2">Amy Hunt</a> breathlessly told the BBC, “Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like … muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears.” 
Taking the cue on the so-called “healing” moment from a few big stars across the athletic space, social media immediately drowned itself in videos of women (nay beasts, which by the way is a massive CrossFit compliment) deadlifting, sprinting, tumbling, throwing weights every which way and that, and flexing their fittest form at their competitive best. It was the spontaneous internet Olympics of muscle mommies and fit girlies. To quote Chris Farley in “Tommy Boy” when it comes to their capabilities: “Holy schnikes.” 
U.S. gymnast <a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/1395360435904060">Gracie Kramer</a> noted, “We shouldn’t all have to worry about the way we look every single day in order to do the things that we want to do.” She told the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/articles/c9dw905jw5no">BBC</a> that she “just wanted to uplift women and remind them that you may see these types of ads but remember that this is not the only thing that matters.”
Kramer essentially launched the trend of female athletes posting their own me-toos with the battle cry “this is what women in sport look like.” Along with a carousel of herself and friends in thong bikinis, crop tops, and sports bras, she <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DdR8SclEmD0/?hl=en&amp;img_index=1">wrote</a>, “Recognize that your value extends so far beyond your appearance.” But just in case it doesn’t, here’s a cute butt shot from the stands of a WNBA game.
Under the caption, a supportive comment read, “Now let’s show the same enthusiasm about getting men out of women’s sports [muscle emoji].” That was followed by another user’s reply, “Don’t use this movement here to spread your transphobia.” 
“It’s amazing women are attacking women and yet protecting men in women’s spaces. Make it make sense,” wrote a third person who appeared to be a man, totally mansplaining, right?
I wondered if I missed the part where Sweeney claimed she was actively participating in all the sports she was promoting. She’s obviously not getting drafted for the NFL anytime soon, but I’m pretty sure even women’s flag football typically requires a mouthguard, at least. And, like, somewhere to attach the flags. 
For the record, Sweeney’s a former athlete. “I grew up loving sports,” she told <a href="https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/khal/sydney-sweeney-novig-just-sports-campaign-exclusive-interview">Complex</a>. “I was on a soccer team, I was on a softball team, I was on a snow ski team. I learned how to slalom ski when I was little, and I did MMA. So sports have been a really big part of my life, and I love watching hockey and boxing … I have a really huge appreciation for every single fighter.”
So is the problem that we can’t accept that the curvaceous denim darling from the American Eagle “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK8s3iqL99c">Great Jeans</a>” commercial could also exist as the sexed-up bombshell from the Novig ad? Or that our acceptable vision for women — despite our ongoing yo-yo diet of obese Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models and red carpet Wegovy waifs — remains unwaveringly narrow, despite the current “positivity” thing?
If the issue comes down to her come-hither poses with various sports balls, how dare Sydney Sweeney reel in participants by appealing to the basest concupiscence of the prediction market! But heck-to-the-no if she thinks she’s getting away with trivializing women in sports. Perhaps we should all be like the European Broadcasting Union <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-strange-new-rules-for-womens-sports-coverage">banning</a> “sexualized” camera angles on female athletes. Still, isn’t it sexist to assume that women who literally spend every waking minute perfecting their bodies so they function at an elite level wouldn’t want to be seen on the world stage? You know what? Maybe we shouldn’t show women on TV at all. Just men! Solved. 
I’m no expert. I’m just a woman who works out, who was once a girl who loved high school soccer and watching my sister crush NCAA D1 gymnastics at Penn State. But I have another theory about the hot mess Syd Sweeney backlash. In our misguided cultural effort to forward the movement our athletic ancestors so graciously handed to us on a silver platter — Title IX — we women destroy ourselves by obsessing over who counts as women in women’s sports. The current scorecard:
She/her = yes. But not too much of her actual body, her politics, or her voice. 
He/him = yes. If he identifies as she. Full stop. The world is his/her oyster.
We’ll pass out holding our breath waiting for the outrage mob to catch on to the fact that not all biological sexes should be welcome in women’s sports. What about all that blood, that sweat, and those tears we’re supposedly aiming at Sydney Sweeney? The same contingent screaming their guts out about a pretty girl doing sports wrong seems totally fine with a man doing whatever he wants all over the equal playing field. 
Listen, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, it’s perfectly fine to support women’s sports without condoning commercialized debauchery — or even gambling in the first place. Yes, Sweeney’s ad is meant to be tantalizing. But it’s not about women’s sports. And I’d argue it’s not really about women, either. There’s a larger conversation to be had around who gets to step into the arena and represent women. And it ain’t about Sydney Sweeney.
As most of the internet swims around in a memory hole of mid-2000s Carl’s Jr. campaigns and comes to terms with the Sadie Sink <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We_VjVJ7_cs">Calvin Klein</a> ad that — while bursting with euphemism — didn’t quite achieve the same “brand awareness” that Syd’s did, I’m holding out hope that women can find a way to support each other. Aimed at the right target, this kind of outrage machine could actually make a difference in protecting women’s sports for girls and women. Yes, even those who look like Sydney Sweeney. 
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Sydney Sweeney Outrage Has A Pretty Obvious Blind Spot

advertising

lifestyle

Open letter to the Women’s National Basketball Players Association:
Maybe you’ve forgotten, but the first letter in WNBA is W, and the union that claims to represent its players is W.
Which stands for “Women’s.”
Simply put, the league was created to give female basketball players a professional league of their own — one in which they can compete for roster spots, contracts, playing time, endorsements, and championships.
By extension, the union was created to protect them. Protect their jobs. Protect their working conditions. Protect the opportunities they spent their lives earning.
Yet on one of the most consequential questions facing women’s athletics, where is the Women’s National Basketball Players Association?
Where is the unequivocal policy stating that the jobs reserved for female professional basketball players will remain reserved for female athletes?
Where is the union demanding clarity from the league? Where is the union standing up for the women whose dues finance its operations?
And why should those women have to wonder where their own union stands?
There is an unavoidable contradiction here.
You cannot credibly represent the employees of a women’s professional sports league while refusing to define who qualifies to compete in that women’s league.
The whole point of gender-specific sports is to recognize that physical differences between males and females can matter enormously in athletic competition.
If those categories have no meaningful boundary, then what exactly is the union protecting?
We all know the answer. As is too often true of unions representing workers in every economic sector, the WNBPA’s top priority is advancing a radically liberal agenda, even at the expense of its own members.
Every WNBA roster has a finite number of jobs, and every roster spot awarded to one player is unavailable to another. Every minute of playing time, every contract, and every opportunity affects somebody else’s career.
That makes eligibility a labor issue. And labor issues are supposed to be the union’s business.
Why shouldn’t this be one of them?
WNBA players deserve to know whether their union believes biological sex matters when determining eligibility for women’s professional basketball.
They deserve to know whether their union would object if a male athlete sought a WNBA roster spot.
They deserve to know what protections — if any — the union has sought to ensure that opportunities created specifically for female athletes remain available to female athletes.
Silence isn’t a policy. Ambiguity isn’t protection.
The WNBPA needs to answer some straightforward questions:
How does the union define eligibility for participation in women’s professional basketball?
Does the union support reserving WNBA roster positions for female athletes?
Has the union requested or negotiated protections concerning sex-based eligibility?
What would the union do if a player believed she had lost a roster spot, contract, playing time, or another employment opportunity because the league’s eligibility rules permitted a male athlete to compete in the women’s category?
What specific protections has the union established to defend the integrity of the female competitive category?
These shouldn’t be trick questions. They are fundamental to the union’s presumed reason for being.
The women of the WNBA worked extraordinarily hard to reach this level of play.
The union exists to represent its members, not a political movement that effectively undercuts their careers, their contracts, their roster spots, their opportunities, and their future.
Whatever position the union ultimately takes, its members deserve something better than evasion. They deserve a clear policy and an organization willing to defend it.
Tell your members where you stand. Explain exactly how you intend to protect the jobs and opportunities that women’s professional basketball was created to provide.
If the Women’s National Basketball Players Association cannot explain what makes women’s basketball women’s — and cannot promise to defend the women whose livelihoods depend upon that distinction — then its members are entitled to ask a much bigger question:
What, exactly, is their union for?
***
Aaron Withe is CEO of the Freedom Foundation.

Indiana Fever v Dallas Wings

The WNBPA Doesn’t Know Who It Represents

labor union

This article was written by Karen Crouse and published on <a href="https://sportandstate.com/">Sport &amp; State</a>, a new media company founded by Clay Travis that is built around sports, culture, original voices, and live conversation.
* * * * *
Let me get this straight: a woman in sports media describes as <a href="https://x.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/2099650656676032915">“so, so gross”</a> the reaction of men in sports media laughing at a fake AI-generated video of the Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian slapping the sports broadcaster Holly Rowe.
And, yet — checks notes — the same woman in sports media expressed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5682121/2024/08/05/iba-olympic-boxing-controversy-imane-khelif/">no such outrage</a> when, during the 2024 Olympics in Paris, the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who would <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/06/sports/imane-khelif-opens-up-on-natural-male-gene-while-agreeing-to-undergo-testing-for-2028-olympics/">confirm having the male chromosome</a> in an interview with L’Equipe, struck a female opponent for real with two of the hardest punches she said she has ever absorbed.
The woman in sports media expressed no sympathy for that vanquished welterweight opponent, the Italian Angela Carini, who ended the charade after 46 seconds by withdrawing and then would be coerced into apologizing for her poor sportsmanship after refusing the obligatory post-bout handshake.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Angela Carini was forced to compete in a boxing match against Imane Khelif at the Olympics.
She quit 46 seconds in after getting punched in the face. Imane was declared the winner.
Khelif failed gender eligibility tests at the 2023 World Championships.
Poor girl. She trained… <a href="https://t.co/FzstBTtUOs">pic.twitter.com/FzstBTtUOs</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1818981345865162790?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 1, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
To be clear, Khelif would confess to <a href="https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/current/imane-khelif-y-chromosome-testosterone-paris-olympics-gold-medal-boxing/">having the male chromosome</a> in 2026, long after securing the gold medal in Paris. But the fact that Khelif and another boxer had been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships, governed by the International Boxing Association, for having demonstrated in an unspecified test that they possessed “competitive advantages over other female competitors,” ought to have registered a red flag, not a green light.
It should have awakened the entire sports media’s skepticism, not their collective sympathy toward Khelif, who has not competed in a World Boxing-sanctioned event since it announced in 2025 the implementation of mandatory sex testing.
When I speak of the hypocrisy of the media ecosystem that considers me a turncoat, this is what I am talking about: women in sports media being offended by puerile men at a press conference, but championing, if only through their deafening silence or what is left unsaid in their reporting, the pummeling of women athletes — and those who support them — by competitors who have no business invading their sacred sporting space.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;Josh Jacobs was criticized less for, on video, knocking down his girlfriend, according to the complaint&#8230; than Arch Manning.&#8221;
&#8220;What are we doing?&#8221; asks <a href="https://x.com/ClayTravis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ClayTravis</a> in response to the backlash over Manning laughing at an AI-generated video of Holly Rowe. <a href="https://t.co/ge4WYLKiEw">pic.twitter.com/ge4WYLKiEw</a>
— Sport &amp; State (@SportNState) <a href="https://x.com/SportNState/status/2099954009800847374?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 15, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
To be clear: my values haven’t changed since the days I shared press rooms with women in sports media who welcome the inclusion in women’s sports of biological males or those, like Khelif, who have a sexual genetic disorder in which a gene carried only on Y chromosomes triggers orthodox male sexual development.
The lens through which the media ecosystem reports on sports is what has changed. It has narrowed to the point where common sense is demonized and misplaced empathy is exalted; where trivial transgressions, like Arch Manning laughing at a stupid AI-generated video and the adults in the room laughing alongside him, are treated like a sign of the Apocalypse while something closer to a doomsday scenario — 50 years of gains made by women athletes under Title IX being corroded as the gatekeepers take their virtuous bows — is cheered. (Manning apologized for his comment and directly to Holly Rowe <a href="https://x.com/PeteThamel/status/2099929801465176393">in an Instagram post.</a>)
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“I saw the AI Edit of (Sark) slapping Holly Rowe.”
I asked Arch Manning if he’d seen any edits on TikTok or Twitter after the game, and his answer is gold. <a href="https://t.co/70FnNCVEHb">pic.twitter.com/70FnNCVEHb</a>
— Evan Vieth (@EvanVieth) <a href="https://x.com/EvanVieth/status/2099566731630928332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The pearl-clutching over the witless AI-generated video follows on the high heels of the hand-wringing over the witless ad for the Calloway driver created by Good Good Golf, which featured <a href="https://sportandstate.com/2026/08/31/clay-travis-good-good-vs-josh-jacobs-shows-social-medias-broken-morality/">a man shoving to the ground a woman</a> who was reaching for his golf club. People saw their careers wiped clean by the wave of outrage that followed.
The trivializing of violence against women was just too terrible to ignore. Until Sunday came around and the focus returned to the field of play, to the tennis player Alexander Zverev, twice accused of <a href="https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/39386940/alexander-zverev-assault-trial-domestic-abuse-charges-know">domestic violence</a> by former partners, and his victory in the U.S. Open men’s singles final, and the Minnesota Vikings’ victory over the Green Bay Packers, whose roster includes the running back Josh Jacobs, who didn’t play after pleading no contest last week to <a href="https://www.nfl.com/news/packers-rb-josh-jacobs-pleads-no-contest-misdemeanor-charges">misdemeanor charges of battery</a> and criminal damage to property involving an ex-girlfriend.
The media ecosystem can’t trumpet the trivial and trivialize the profound without all of us ultimately paying a terrible price.
Follow Karen Crouse on X <a href="https://x.com/Kayceeunplugged">@KayceeUnplugged</a>

boxing-texas-1536×864

Sports Media Has Selective Outrage Over Violence Against Women, Real And Fake

angela carini

holly rowe

imane khelif

sports media

transgender athletes in sports

I had never imagined that joining a sorority would land me smack-dab in the middle of a national controversy and legal battle. I remember scrolling through my social media, seeing girls doing their hair and makeup just right, shopping for the perfect outfits, and talking about how joining a sorority was the best thing they’d chosen to do in college. Most women look back on their college sorority years with fondness, cherishing the lifelong friendships and late-night memories that we so often miss when we graduate. I expected the same. As any other 20-year-old would, I also expected there might be some drama, or some ups and downs, just as any other college experience usually entails. But trust me, I never thought the “drama” would end with me suing Kappa Kappa Gamma and preparing to argue our case before a federal appeals court in Denver today.
During my <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/profile/it-tore-us-apart-after-her-sorority-initiated-a-male-kkg-member-says-sisterhood-will-never-be-the-same/">senior year</a> at the University of Wyoming, I had my eyes on the prize: graduating and finishing my last year strong. Almost overnight, that plan went straight out the window. A male student, who identified as transgender, sought membership in my sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma. Our chapter voted on him and agreed that a man doesn’t belong in a sorority — after all, it is a sorority, not a fraternity.
Later, we were unexpectedly called to vote again on the same man, and this time the whole process was totally against protocol. Members were explicitly asked to attach their names and email addresses to their votes, and some of the girls weren’t even home when they conducted the vote. Some of us saw clearly what was going on: accept this individual, or face consequences
The long story short is, his membership in our sisterhood was forced on us without our consent. My sisters and I faced a twisted “Mean Girls” reality.
In the weeks that followed, I remember having to peek out of my room to make sure I avoided him on the way to the showers. The worst part of it all was feeling uncomfortable in a space that should’ve been sacredly female.
What is a woman? That question should be elementary. Yet the inability — or refusal — to acknowledge that simple definition changed how we experienced our own home.
Girls who had joined an organization explicitly created around sisterhood were expected to surrender our privacy. Some of my sisters had previously experienced sexual assault or abuse, yet their discomfort with having a male in intimate female spaces didn’t seem to matter.
We were college students trying to figure out how to respond to something none of us had been prepared for. Looking back, that is one of the parts that disappoints me the most. The adults who could have stood up for us chose to stay silent.
The reality is that I didn’t think this would happen to me, but it did. And I fear it will happen again. But one thing has changed since my senior year at the University of Wyoming: more women are speaking up.
We’ve watched athletes like Sophie Cunningham <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/payton-mcnabb-backlash-against-sophie-cunningham-proves-goalposts-moved">publicly defend</a> women’s sports despite knowing exactly what kind of backlash would inevitably follow. We’ve watched fans show their support outside the stadiums. We’ve seen women who once felt isolated, or like they couldn’t speak up, discover that saying what they believe out loud gives someone else permission to do the same.
That matters because courage really is contagious — but don’t be fooled, so is silence.
Kappa taught me three core values: truth, respect, and trailblazing. Those words mean something to me, even if the organization itself has lost sight of their meaning. Truth means acknowledging biological reality even when doing so is unpopular. Respect includes acknowledging the boundaries, privacy, and voices of women who disagree with you. Trailblazing, for me, means being willing to stand almost entirely alone before other people realize it was a trail worth following.
These are the values that my sisters and I will carry into Denver with us.
In the coming days, my sorority sisters and I will once again take our fight against the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma to federal court. Oral arguments in our case will be heard before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado. Years after we walked the halls of the University of Wyoming, we <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2024/05/14/landmark-sorority-lawsuit-women-tenth-circuit-rally-to-save-sisterhood/">ask</a> Kappa to honor its bylaws and acknowledge what a woman is. I hope that they will, not just for our sake, but for all the future generations who will walk through those sorority halls.
***
Allie Coghan is an Independent Women ambassador and an agricultural business alumna at the University of Wyoming. In college, she was a plaintiff in Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Sorority Bid Day at George Washington University

Why I’m Fighting To Save Sisterhood In Federal Court

kappa kappa gamma

transgender policy

university of wyoming

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

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

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

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>

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