US Senator John Thune’s Weekly Column: Men Don’t Belong in Women’s Sports

Men Don’t Belong in Women’s Sports
By Sen. John Thune 

More than 50 years ago, Congress passed landmark legislation to create equal spaces and opportunities in education for women. Title IX is particularly notable for its effect on women’s sports. By requiring that recipients of federal funding create equal athletic opportunities for women and girls, Title IX paved the way for the women’s and girls’ athletic programs that exist today at K-12 schools, colleges, and universities around the country.

But today the gains made possible by Title IX are under attack. We’ve seen biological men identifying as women take spots on teams, medals, and opportunities from women. It’s happening in a range of sports. A female runner acknowledged that first place was not within reach because she knew there would be no winning a race against a biological male who finished a full minute and 22 seconds ahead of the second-place, female finisher. A male pole vaulter won the high school women’s competition with a vault that exceeded the second-place vaulter by six inches. A high school girls’ basketball team had nearly half of its season’s points scored by a male. And that’s just a sampling of the stories.

The United Nations reported last year, “The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males.” The U.N. estimated that more than 600 female athletes had lost almost 900 medals to biological men in 29 sports.

The problems here are obvious. First of all, there is the physical danger that can be posed by men participating in women’s and girls’ sports. But there’s also fairness, equality, and opportunity. Title IX was created to give women opportunities that had been denied them. But allowing biological men to compete against women means robbing female athletes of not just medals and trophies, but also scholarships, spots on a team, and opportunities to compete in front of college scouts.

This isn’t fair. Both of my daughters are former athletes, and I know how much competing in sports matters to young women and how hard they work to win. My dad was a Division I athlete who came home to Murdo and coached girls’ basketball and track. It would have been unthinkable to him that biological men could compete against the young women he coached.

I’m proud that President Trump took action to protect the original meaning of Title IX and ensure that federal funding would not go to schools that allow men to compete as women. This executive order is an important step, but executive orders can be rescinded. So the U.S. Senate recently attempted to take the next step and make this the law. Unfortunately, every single Democrat in the Senate voted to prevent us from even debating the bill.

I had a professor who used to say that some things are just intuitively obvious. This is one of those things. Generations of American women have benefited from Title IX’s promise of fair competition and equal opportunity in sports. Keeping biological men out of women’s sports is about keeping that promise alive for the next generation of female athletes.

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