How President Trump can save women’s sports on Day 1

The Biden-Harris administration has done more damage to women’s sports and privacy than you realize. On Day 1, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing the entire government to infuse gender ideology throughout the nation. "Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports," he said, which, translated into regular English, means "Boys, including 18-year-old seniors, must access girls’ locker rooms and sports, if it agrees with their internal sense of self."  

He directed every agency to implement regulations to carry out this policy, and they did. Today, schools cannot even qualify for school lunch money unless they implement radical policies that treat men as women, including in the locker room. (This is all illegal, obviously, and court challenges have blunted the effect in some states.) 

Unwinding will take some time, and President-elect Donald Trump has committed himself to it. He vowed his administration would use Title IX to prohibit men from participating in women’s sports. That’s a good start. I was an attorney for the first Trump White House. I have traveled the country with Paula Scanlan, who was forced to strip before Lia Thomas 18 times per week. I got to know Payton McNabb who was partially paralyzed by a man spiking a ball at her head. Here’s my take on what can and should be done immediately.    

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Announce a high-profile Title IX investigation, like of San Jose State University, and follow through to rescind their federal dollars  

During Trump’s first administration, the Department of Justice found that a Connecticut policy permitting men in women’s sports cuts against Title IX’s core purpose, to ensure women have an equal opportunity to participate in educational programs, including sports. 

Nevada Wolf Pack women's volleyball players with Sam Brown and Tulsi Gabbard. (Sam Brown campaign)

That was correct, which multiple courts have now agreed with when enjoining Biden’s Title IX rewrite (which requires schools to allow men in women’s locker rooms). The Supreme Court has indicated it unanimously agrees Title IX cannot sustain a gender ideology mandate.  

The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights should immediately announce an investigation into a school that fails to protect women’s sports, like San Jose State University, which continues to permit a male to take the roster spot of women, endanger women during practices and matches and silence women from speaking out. SJSU is only one option. Several schools in New Hampshire, for example, are directly violating their state law that protects women’s sports, claiming Biden’s illegal Title IX rewrite gives them cover.  

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Rescind all guidance that illegally represents that Title IX covers gender identity 

Title IX is a 1972 law designed to stop schools from discriminating against women — discrimination that included offering them zero athletic opportunities, except occasionally field hockey. The Biden-Harris administration seemed to miss that memo, and says Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of "gender identity," in document after document. That argument is illegal. The Department of Education has absolutely no statutory authority to impose a gender ideology mandate on our nation’s female athletes. Delete all this guidance.  

Go beyond reversing Biden’s Title IX regulation and enact a regulation that protects women’s sports 

My ideal end solution is to get the federal government out of the school business and return it to the states. But that’s going to take a while. In the meantime, a new Title IX regulation should explicitly protect women’s sports.

The longstanding regulation says that schools "shall provide equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes." As if that needed clarification, Trump’s Department of Education should add that equal opportunity requires a reasonable number of female-only teams and private spaces (which is how the statute has been understood for decades). And as if that needed clarification, the regulation should define female to mean an individual belonging to the sex that has the reproductive role of producing ova.  

Whack the NCAA 

The NCAA is a multi-billion-dollar organization that strips women of opportunities by permitting post-pubescent males in the female category. Before supporting any NCAA wish list items, which might include name-image-likeness (NIL) legislation, an exemption from Title IX for NIL payments (which go predominantly to men), or breathing room from antitrust investigation, the NCAA should comply with Title IX’s purpose of protecting women’s sports.  

Ask for review of three women’s sports cases pending before the Supreme Court 

Three states (Idaho, West Virginia and Arizona) are currently unable to protect women’s sports due to rogue court interpretations that the 14th Amendment and Title IX require men in women’s sports. Ask the Supreme Court to review and overturn these unhinged decisions. 

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May Mailman is the director of Independent Women’s Law Center (iwlc.org).