In January 2023, protesters rallied outside the NCAA convention in Phoenix in support of women’s sports and against allowing transgender men to compete with biological women. The headliner was former University of Kentucky swimming star Riley Gaines, who lost the NCAA medal many believed was rightfully hers when she was forced to compete against male swimmer Lia Thomas. She was joined by dozens of fellow female athletes, coaches, and parents.

Speakers at the rally included swimmer Paula Scanlan, who noted that there are many women and girls who have lost opportunities to biological males competing in the women’s division. “Every time Thomas competed,” Scanlan said, “a female swimmer lost a lane in the pool. When we tried to voice our concerns to the athletic department, we were told that Lia’s swimming on the team was ‘a non-negotiable,’ that they were simply following NCAA guidelines.”

After besting his female competitors, including Gaines, who was expected to take top honors in the event, Thomas claimed: “Trans people don’t transition for athletics, we transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves.... Transitioning to get an advantage is not something that ever factors into our decisions.” But many observers found his claims laughable when photos of the tall, strapping, masculine-appearing Thomas — who had previously lost in competitive swimming against fellow male athletes — showed up in the media next to his diminutive, obviously female competitors.

During the rally, Gaines presented a petition signed by 70,000 people, including over 500 Olympians, opposing the incursion of biological male athletes into women’s sports, which Gaines said “is happening in just about every sport at every level in every state. That’s why we’re here. Any way we can be useful to the conversation, to share our concerns, to share the real effects and the impacts we have seen as female athletes, we are here and we are willing to be invited to the table.”

While progress has been slow, there are signs the tide may be turning and that voices in support of women’s sports are being heard. For example, President Biden’s rewrite of Title IX earlier this year to allow transgender athletes to play on women’s sports teams has not been a roaring success. According to Education Week (edweek.org), the new rule “has drawn at least eight lawsuits,” with “26 states” having signed on to the litigation, effectively placing the rule “on hold.”

Ed Week reported that additionally, “one school district, two students, and five conservative advocacy organizations have signed onto the legal challenges. All eight of the lawsuits filed resulted in injunctions” ... which temporarily “block the rule while the cases play out in court.”

The rule technically became effective August 1, 2024, but on August 16, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 “to reject a Biden administration emergency request to enforce portions of that new rule that includes protection from discrimination for transgender students under Title IX.”

Transgender fallout in volleyball

So far this fall, three women’s college volleyball teams have forfeited games with San Jose State University, which includes a biologically male player. On September 27, the Daily Mail Online reported that Boise State University announced it would forfeit its volleyball match with San Jose “without offering a specific reason.”

According to the online news platform, OutKick.com, so far this season in the Mountain West Conference, Southern Utah State, Boise State, and the University of Wyoming have each forfeited games with San Jose, “as safety concerns for female student athletes arise in the women’s collegiate volleyball space.”

San Jose’s transgender player, Braydon (Blaire) Fleming, is 6 feet 1 inch tall and, according to teammate Brooke Slusser, can spike a volleyball “at upward of 80 miles-per-hour,” faster than she says she has ever seen a woman hit a volleyball. According to a Fox News report, in joining 18 other athletes in suing the NCAA over its current gender identity policies, Slusser said: “The girls [on the opposing teams] were doing everything they could to dodge Fleming’s spikes but still could not fully protect themselves.”

OutKick reports that the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) sent a letter to Mountain West Conference schools calling out the conference for “violating federal law by implementing and enforcing the NCAA transgender eligibility policies.” San Jose State “holds an undefeated 9-0 record” with Fleming on the team competing against women. The letter urges “the Mountain West Conference and schools under the conference to step up and defend women from the potential risks of competing against men and save women’s rights under Title IX.”

Physical dangers

Since males have been allowed to compete in female sports, injuries to women and girls have been widely reported. OutKick writes that in 2022, 17-year-old Payton McNabb, “sustained a devastating head and neck injury while playing against a transgender volleyball player.” The article points out that “regulation net height for women’s college volleyball is 7 feet 4 1/8 inches, while for men’s college volleyball, it is 7 feet 11 5/8 inches.”

The ICONS letter also states that “study after peer-reviewed study has shown clear performance advantages for males in sport pre-puberty. Studies also clearly show that male advantage continues to exist even after attempts to suppress testosterone.” The letter then stressed in bold type that “due to enduring sex-based physical differences between men and women, the only way sport can be safe, fair, and equal for women is to maintain a protected female category that excludes male competitors.”

The letter further broaches the subject of women’s privacy in their locker rooms, with the presence of men leading to “serious mental and emotional damage for women who have suffered through sexual assault. Additionally, cases of trans athletes have involved exposing male genitalia without consent.”

Parents file suit

On September 30, two sets of parents filed suit against the Bow School District in New Hampshire in Fellers-et-al.-v.-Kelley-et-al, for violating their First Amendment right to show support for protecting women’s sports by wearing pink wristbands during their children’s soccer game. The suit accuses school officials with threatening “to have them arrested for trespass” and for conspiring with local police and a soccer referee to have them arrested for wearing the wristbands.

The parents contend that, after the game, they and all those who stood with them in support of girls’ soccer were banned from attending any future games, despite the fact that the protest was a silent one that only involved wearing the wristbands.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported on the lawsuit, which charges that the Bow School District’s “ban on demonstrations criticizing the decision to allow biological boys to play girls’ soccer—cloaked in the language of ‘disruption’ and ‘harassment’—is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.” The parents further assert that “the First Amendment does not allow state-operated schools to become enclaves of totalitarianism.”

The Daily Caller’s article explains that one of the players’ parents, mom Nicole Foote, met with the athletic director days before the soccer game in question “to express concern regarding the potential risks of allowing a biological man to compete in women’s sports, to which the director said the court prevented the school from doing anything.” The director followed up the discussion by sending an email warning that the school would “impose obligations” per its handbook, “on any actions from the sideline,” including any “inappropriate signs, references, or language,” meaning such would not be allowed.

While some individuals wrote “XX” on their wristbands to show support for female athletes, no parents wore them during the first half of the game, according to the Daily Caller. “Besides the wristbands, there were no other indications of parents outwardly protesting, but the athletic director told one parent that he had to take off [his] wristband, to which he argued that First Amendment rights protect the use of the wristbands.”

The message to parents and athletes from K-12 through college level school officials appears to be that, despite the potential harm to female athletes, they must willingly accept without question or opposition any male wishing to play on a girls’ or women’s team. Many observers wonder where the feminists are who battled for Title IX years ago when far fewer women than men were interested in sports. Now, women who do want to play a sport and work hard to be successful, are penalized by zealots placing men in women’s sports and putting women in harm’s way.

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