William Bock III, who recently resigned in disgust over the National Collegiate Athletics Association’s (NCAA) policies allowing men to compete as women, is speaking out against the rules that he says are “unethical” toward natural-born female athletes and take opportunities away from women.
Bock sent his letter of resignation to NCAA President Charlie Baker early this month, informing the organization that he could not in good conscience belong to a group that discriminates against women and harms their interests, and in his letter, he blasted the NCAA for its “regressive policies which discriminate against female student-athletes.”
The now-former NCAA official insisted that the group’s criteria allowing transgender athletes to compete as women do not negate the natural physical advantages that male-born athletes have over women, even if they have suppressed their testosterone levels.
Lia Thomas (second from left) of the Pennsylvania Quakers gets ready to compete in the 500-meter freestyle event during a tri-meet against the Yale Bulldogs and the Dartmouth Big Green at Sheerr Pool on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania on January 8, 2022, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
“There’s a lot of biological development that starts at birth that allows you to maximize testosterone, and those changes that you get through development — they don’t go away,” he wrote. “And you’re going to reduce performance by a small amount if you reduce testosterone levels, but you’re never going to bridge the gap between men and women. And so it’s a ruse to say that testosterone suppression, it’s a level playing field, so it’s not true.”
Bock, who was also a one-time general counsel for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, has reiterated his stance in a new interview with women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines in which he called the shift towards transgenderism “unethical.”
“So, the committee I was on was supposed to be about ethical sport,” Bock said during his Feb. 21 interview, according to Fox News. “What is happening to women is unethical. It’s discriminatory. It’s, I believe, a violation of Title IX protections for women. But it violates the fundamental tenet of sport, which is competitive fairness. If you don’t have competitive fairness, you don’t have true sport.
“At that point, I had realized that I needed to just make it very clear I couldn’t continue in that role given their unwillingness to change those policies,” Bock continued.
Transgender woman Lia Thomas (L) of the University of Pennsylvania stands on the podium after winning the 500-yard freestyle as other medalists (L-R) Emma Weyant, Erica Sullivan, and Brooke Forde pose for a photo at the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship on March 17, 2022, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
“The NCAA cannot succeed in achieving ethical sport so long as it endorses a policy of discrimination against female student-athletes,” Bock told the NCAA. “Because of the NCAA’s track record of persistent disregard for competitive fairness for female student-athletes, I have decided that continued service on the Division I Committee on Infractions is not an effective way for me to contribute to a level playing field in college sport.”
Bock also blasted former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, who only recently took the position of president of the college sports governing body.
“I was very hopeful when Mr. Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, had assumed the office because he has a reputation for fairness,” Bock explained. “And understand, he has a daughter that played high school sports. So, I was hoping there would be a fresh look at this issue, but it became apparent, and is apparent because the rules have only been cosmetically changed, that no change was going to happen.”
Indeed, not only has no change occurred, but the NCAA has doubled down on its support for men competing as women with more rules to codify their participation.
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