By Riley Gaines for RealClearPolitics
Are you part of the 70% of American adults who support protecting the integrity and fairness of women’s sports by opposing males competing with and against females? If so, you’ll have a chance to stand with women in less than two months when America goes to the polls to choose the leaders who will make the laws and regulations that ensure women’s sports are only for women.
Let’s face it. Women’s rights are on the line in this election. The attack on our ability to compete fairly and safely in athletic competitions is unlike any we’ve seen since the enactment of Title IX in 1972. That law – which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any school or education program that receives federal funds – is largely responsible for the exponential growth of women’s sports over the last 50 years.
Growth in participation is significant. In 1970, just 15% of college athletes were female; today, we make up 44% of college athletes. Female participation in high school sports has exploded over the last five decades, too. During the 1971-72 school year, fewer than 300,000 girls participated in sports, but by 2018-19, that number had increased more than ten-fold to almost 3.5 million girls in competition.
That growth in participation, brought about by the legally mandated equality of the sexes, is now threatened by politicians, too many of whom appear more committed to ideological goals than to biological reality.
Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, federal bureaucrats have moved aggressively to tilt the playing field. The Biden-Harris administration’s rewrite of Title IX regulations, released April 19 of this year, takes the view that keeping women’s sports all female violates Title IX. That’s just wrong.
I’ve been fighting this kind of thinking at the federal and state level for some time. We’ve made significant progress – 26 states now have laws or regulations on the books protecting women’s sports. And at the federal level, we’ve succeeded in passing legislation through the House, and we’ve forced a vote in the Senate, which allows us to know who’s with us and who’s not. (For the record, on that House vote, every member of Congress who voted for the Protection of Women in Sports Act was a Republican, and every member who voted against it was a Democrat. And in the Senate, every incumbent Democratic senator voted against bringing a women’s sports amendment to the floor for a vote, while every senator who cosponsors the Title IX Congressional Review Act resolution is a Republican.)
We still have a ways to go. After the elections, we’ll have a new president and a new Congress, and we’ll try again to move legislation at the federal level to protect women’s sports and spaces – like domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, women’s prisons, and locker rooms, for example. So electing the right leaders in November will be crucial to the success of our efforts next year.
To that end, Independent Women’s Voice has created the Riley Gaines Stand with Women Scorecard, a helpful tool that will draw clear contrasts on the issue. On the one hand will be lawmakers and prospective lawmakers who support fairness, equal opportunity, safety, and privacy in women’s sports and spaces; on the other hand will be those who do not.
The Scorecard is as simple as it sounds – it’s a first-of-its-kind resource that scores every candidate for federal office on whether or not they “Stand with Women,” meaning that they are committed to supporting legislation that preserves female opportunities and private spaces. The Riley Gaines Stand with Women Scorecard, made possible by Independent Women’s Voice, will become an indispensable tool for those of us committed to this vital issue.
Elections are about choices, and campaigns are about contrasts. The choices we make in November will guide the policies enacted and implemented by government at the federal, state, and local level, and will, in many ways, shape the contours of the contests in which our sisters and daughters compete and the safety they feel in their women-only spaces.
This new tool to help identify candidates who are as committed to the cause as we are will help ease the way forward as we fight to maintain equality of the sexes.
We know what a woman is, and what a female is, and we’re committed to standing with women for fairness and equality. We believe our political leaders should know and be committed to those things, too. And now, with Independent Women Voice’s Riley Gaines Stand with Women Scorecard, we’ll know which politicians are worthy of our support – and which are not.
Riley Gaines is an ambassador for Independent Women’s Voice and the host of the OutKick podcast “Gaines for Girls”.
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
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As we approach the upcoming elections, let us stand together to protect the integrity and fairness of women’s sports. Our efforts now will shape the landscape for future generations of female athletes. Let’s make our voices heard and ensure that women have equal opportunities in sports and spaces. With the right leaders in place, we can continue to champion for equality and stand with women. Let’s keep pushing forward for a better future for all female athletes!
