New Title IX Regulation Threatens Women’s Athletic Opportunities

Real Clear Education | By Paul Scanlan | April 26, 2024

For more than 50 years, Title IX has outlawed sex discrimination in education and required schools to provide equal athletic opportunities for male and female students.

But a recently released Title IX regulation contradicts this mandate by redefining “sex” to include “gender identity,” thus requiring schools to allow males who identify as women to enter women’s spaces and take opportunities from female students.

Knowing that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of male bodies on women’s athletic teams, the Biden administration disingenuously claims that the rule doesn’t apply to sports. And, yet, the Administration has repeatedly insisted — in court filings and in public pronouncements — that Title IX requires schools to allow trans-identified males to play women’s sports.

Well, the Biden Administration can’t have it both ways. Either they are using Title IX to force schools to allow males on women’s sports teams or, if they are not, then schools should stop the madness right now.

Claims that the new rule doesn’t apply to sports are, moreover, belied by the fact that it explicitly applies to women’s locker rooms.

I know well the dangers of inviting males  into women’s locker rooms. I was a member of the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team when the school allowed Lia (formerly Will) Thomas to compete and undress alongside us.

My teammates and I were forced to undress in the presence of Lia, a 6’4” tall biological man fully intact with male genitalia, 18 times per week. Some girls opted to change in bathroom stalls and others used the family bathroom to avoid this. Having Lia in our locker room was particularly traumatizing for me, as prior to attending the University of Pennsylvania, I was sexually assaulted. The swimming locker room had always been a safe space for me. That is, until my university invited a male body to undress alongside me. I began to have nightmares and mentally had to relive my own attack every week that I changed in that locker room.

When we tried to voice our concern to the University Athletic Department, we were told that Lia swimming and being in our locker room was non-negotiable, and we were offered psychological counseling to help us get over our discomfort.

The Administration says it will address athletics in a separate regulation to be released at a later time (no doubt, after the election). But that rule will merely provide procedures for implementing the default position announced last week: that schools must prioritize the wishes of trans-identifying students over those of female students.

Hopefully, the courts will see this for what it is, an unlawful rewrite of Title IX, a statute passed to increase educational opportunities for women—not limit them.

Paula Scanlan is an ambassador with Independent Women’s Forum and a former swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a teammate of Lia (formerly Will) Thomas.