A national women’s sports organization sent a display truck to the Women’s Final Four in Dallas, calling on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to institute a biological rule requiring all competitors in women’s sports to be natural-born females.
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) drove the truck around the American Airlines Center bearing messages that urged NCAA leaders to “stop discriminating against female athletes” and to “keep women’s sports female.” ICONS also had a truck in Houston for the Men’s Final Four tournament.
ICONS co-founder and former champion swimmer Marshi Smith told The Dallas Express that the billboard trucks were a part of their ongoing efforts to get the NCAA to limit participation in women’s sporting events to people who were born women.
“This truck in Dallas and Houston is just a continuation of our San Antonio rally, which we did at the NCAA convention a couple of months ago, where we had two dozen athletes speak their personal stories,” she explained.
In January 2022, the NCAA allowed the participation of biological males in women’s sports if they meet sport-specific testosterone levels.
John DeGioia, chair of the NCAA board, said, “We are steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports.”
In response to the NCAA’s actions, Smith explained that ICONS “delivered a petition and a legal demand letter to the NCAA threatening [a] lawsuit if they do not immediately protect the women’s category and stop discriminating against female athletes.”
The letter noted that Title IX enjoins the creation and protection of female-only teams to ensure equal opportunity for women, “Yet the NCAA implements and perpetuates a policy of allowing male athletes on women’s teams.”
“The NCAA’s discriminatory policies and practices violate state and federal law, directly and proximately resulting in foreseeable and avoidable harms, damages, and losses to female athletes,” the letter continued. “The NCAA is not above the law.”
Title IX, a part of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, says, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
This was interpreted by the Office of Civil Rights in 1979, and largely confirmed by later court cases, to require institutions getting taxpayer funding to provide “equal athletic opportunity” by eliminating “discrimination in financial support and other benefits and opportunities in an institution’s existing athletic program.”
In order to comply with Title IX, schools began adding many women’s sports teams and offering “proportionately equal amounts of financial assistance … to men’s and women’s athletic programs.”
Other factors affected by Title IX interpretation included equalizing the “provision and maintenance of equipment and supplies,” “scheduling of games and practice times,” the “opportunity to receive coaching and academic tutoring,” and the “provision of locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities.”
Allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports undermines these protections by functionally enabling men to take over programs established to ensure equal opportunity for women, according to Smith and ICONS.
“Ever since female athletic categories have existed, there have been people that have tried to manipulate and cheat their way into categories,” Smith said, adding that groups like the NCAA have “made it more and more of a challenge for women athletes and opened the door wider and wider for not only trans-identifying male athletes, but any male athlete to enter a women’s category.”
Recently, a male powerlifter set the women’s bench press record in Canada after identifying as a woman for a tournament, as reported by The Dallas Express. The move was seen as a protest against the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s self-identification policy. The previous record had been held by a transgender person who is a biological male.
The support for the movement, Smith told The Dallas Express, has been strong and growing. “Of the people that we speak to privately, even within the NCAA when we talked to athletic directors, athletic staff, and departments, it’s overwhelmingly in support of what we’re doing.”
Other groups, however, have claimed that biological males pose no threat to female athletes in women’s sports and are actually a positive good for all participants.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) considers it a fact that “including trans athletes will benefit everyone.”
“Excluding women who are trans hurts all women,” the ACLU argues. “It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests or accusations of being ‘too masculine’ or ‘too good’ at their sport to be a ‘real’ woman.”
“Further,” the civil rights group adds, excluding non-biological women, “reinforces stereotypes that women are weak and in need of protection. … including trans athletes will promote values of non-discrimination and inclusion.”
Many states have begun passing legislation to ban the participation of biological men in women’s sports, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has indicated his support for a bill that would expand Texas’s current K-12 prohibition to the collegiate level, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal on an injunction imposed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals shelving a West Virginia law banning males from competing in women’s sports. The case will now be litigated in lower courts while the injunction preventing enforcement of the law remains in place.