Let women compete against women

Let women compete against women. To most people outside the Washington bubble, that principle represents common sense — or at least it should. But unfortunately, the radical Left has different ideas these days. That’s why I’m glad that the House Republican majority is working to pass legislation that will protect women’s sports.

The legislation, which representatives will vote on later this week, would codify this principle in a straightforward manner. The two-page bill prohibits any educational institution receiving federal assistance from “permit[ting] a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designed for women or girls.”

The House bill follows last year’s 50th anniversary of Title IX, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that opened the door for a massive increase in women’s sports nationwide. Sadly, however, the Biden administration, in conjunction with left-wing activists, has reinterpreted Title IX in ways that place the needs of transgender “women” against biological women. Going as far as to threaten a veto of the bill today, the White House continues to endanger the future of female athletes.

I strongly support the sentiments behind the House bill, not just as a woman but as the mother of two young, athletically active girls. My daughters participate in numerous sports, from tennis and soccer to ballet. When they do, they should not have to compete against people born male whose biology gives them inherent advantages in size, muscle, and bone structure.

As she takes up swimming, my youngest daughter should never have to face what my IWF colleague Riley Gaines endured last year. At the NCAA swimming championships last May, Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, “won” Gaines’s 200-yard freestyle event. After years of hard work and training, Gaines had to watch a biological man receive the women’s NCAA national championship.

The transgender movement keeps trying to cancel those who want to ensure that only biological women can compete in women’s sports. In San Francisco recently, a woke mob ambushed Gaines, hurling epithets and assaulting her, because she spoke out on behalf of preserving women’s sports.

But the radical Left cannot cancel the basic tenets of biology. Even the Biden administration had to give way to some semblance of reality in admitting this fact. Its proposed rules regarding Title IX would allow high schools and colleges to preserve women’s sports under certain circumstances.

That said, the Education Department’s proposed rules would not go far enough toward preserving the rights of biological women. Elementary schools would have to let transgender “girls” compete in sports reserved for girls in all circumstances. At the high school and college level, institutions would have to follow a series of guidelines and policies to exclude biological men from women’s sporting competitions. Given these cumbersome bureaucratic obstacles, many institutions will instead cave to the woke mob and allow transgender competitors in all cases, thereby destroying the integrity of women’s sports.

It would be far better for the legislation the House is considering to get enacted into law, preserving women’s sports at all schools, colleges, and universities across the country. Let women compete against women — it’s such a radical idea that Washington should try it.