Riley Gaines, a former school athlete and transphobe who is employed by the Independent Women’s Forum as an “ambassador,” is the leader of the coalition of cisgender-centered activist organizations that is focusing on the National Collegiate Athletic Association this week.
The “We Won’t Back Down Rally” was announced by the transgender exclusive groups on the “Our Bodies, Our Sports” website. At 11 a.m. MST on Thursday, they intend to demonstrate outside the NCAA’s annual convention in Phoenix and demand that the firm outright forbid transgender women athletes from participating in women-only sports.
The groups assert, seemingly without checking their spelling or the facts, that “female athletes work our entire lives to compete in sports, only to have the NCAA destroy [sic] our even playing field.”
In a 2023 interview with Daily Blast Live, Schuyler Bailar, the NCAA’s first-ever trans Division I athlete and the author of He/She/They, asserts that “There is no such thing as an even playing field.” “Sports are based on the idea that everyone has unique advantages.”
The NCAA’s unique policy from 2011 to 2022 was to “ensure that transgender student-athletes have equal, respectful, and legal access to collegiate sports teams based on current medical, legal knowledge,” establishing a historic precedent for sports equality to be protected by human rights.
The NCAA implemented its latest policy in January 2022 under pressure from anti-trans activists like those holding the rally on Thursday. The scheme, which was updated in April 2023, mandates that trans women undergo testosterone suppression therapy for 12 months before they can play on a team with other women.
The legislation also mandates that transgender student-athletes meet the sport’s standard for documented cortisol levels before any regular-season competition, the primary competition in an NCAA championship event, and any non-championship competition.
Additionally, the protestors claim that they are pressuring NCAA President Charlie Baker to change the organization’s existing trans participation policy.
Only before Lia Thomas competed in the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Atlanta, the previously trans-inclusive scheme was replaced with this new limiting policy. Despite USA Swimming’s new, more stringent policy, which mandated testosterone suppression for 36 months, the organization permitted Thomas to compete. That modification was made only months before the NCAA championships and in the middle of the season for college swimmers.
Because of these factors, Thomas was permitted to compete in accordance with the NCAA’s commitment to diversity, participation, and gender equity as well as the International Olympic Committee, which upholds the right of athletes to participate in sports without discrimination.
Thomas later went on to win the 500-freestyle championship and become the country’s first transgender Division I National Champion. She therefore tied with Gaines for fifth place in the 200-freestyle competition and was given the NCAA fifth place prize, while the latter was informed that hers would be mailed to her—a move she has vehemently criticized in print. Gaines has become the darling of right-wing media, which has also spread rumors and lies that the NCAA intended to steal Thomas’ prize and give it to her.
Paula Scanlan, a former teammate of Thomas’ from the University of Pennsylvania, will be joining Gaines at the march on Thursday, who is an outraged college graduate.
Scanlan claimed she was “forced to undress in front of a person every day before getting in the pool at Penn” and that she misgenders Thomas in an interview with the American conservative site dailymail.com. The NCAA “sponsored this recurrence of trauma by failing to acknowledge women’s sports.” We implore the NCAA to restore women’s integrity.
Similar to weight classifications and age categories, sex-based categories are crucial for competitive sports, according to Gaines. Maintaining the fairness required for competition and safety is all we are asking of the NCAA.
According to LGBTQ Nation, Gaines last month used her social media clout to out a celibate trans girl, resulting in the student-athlete apparently losing her athletics scholarship to the University of Washington.
Gaines received compensation from Gov. in addition to being paid as an “ambassador” for the Independent Women’s Forum. For her anti-trans contributions to his policies prohibiting transgender student athletes and gender-affirming treatment in Florida, Ron DeSantis.
The International Consortium on Female Sport, WDI USA, Concerned Women for America, the Independent Women’s Network, Young Women, and the Alliance Defending Freedom are all members of the partnership that is taking part in this fourth monthly “Our Bodies, Our Sports” protest. Other organizations that are a part of this coalition include: the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, The Independent Council on Women’s Sports, Champion Women.
ADF, a traditional Christian law organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled an extremist hate organization, has been working to enact anti-trans rules and change transgender inclusion policies across the U.S. with success in more than 22 states. Additionally, it served as the impetus
for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. Tennessee was one of the first states to identify the Dobbs ruling outlawing gender-affirming care in 2023.
According to the Los Angeles Blade, the U.S. Supreme Court may rule on transgender students’ rights for the last time this year. Researchers claim that there isn’t enough data to make a firm judgment about fairness until then. Without more investigation, it would be premature to foreclose on the inclusion of transgender girls in women’s sports, according to author and doctor Alan Levinowitz of James Madison University.
He cited Johanna Harper, Ph.D., a trans woman who runs and studies. The trouble of moving a larger bone framework with muscle bulk reduced through hormone treatment is one of the “unique disadvantages” she cited for trans people. Harper remarked, “It’s not unreasonable to suggest that trans women don’t have any advantages, nor is it unreasonable for them to do so.”
