Thanks to Title IX, I was a champion gymnast. Now it’s been corrupted

The Biden administration’s denial of reality in rewriting Title IX is nothing more than garden-variety sexism. I see it for what it is, and I’m going on the offense.

This op-ed by yours truly appeared in the Washington Examiner today.

---

Fifty-two years ago this month, Title IX was enacted to prohibit sex discrimination in educational programs and activities at institutions that receive federal funding. And for all of its wide-reaching impacts, it is best known for mandating equality in sports between the sexes.

This was predicated on the commonsense truth that men and women are biologically different, and without sex-based categories in sports, girls and women would never have the opportunity to compete on an equal playing field.

Title IX changed the game for young women, unleashing opportunities for them that had never existed. As of 1972 there were about 300,000 women and girls playing college and high school sports in the U.S. Female athletes received only 2% of college athletic budgets, and college athletic scholarships for women didn’t exist.

Participation of female athletes in high school has increased by 1,057% since 1972; at the college level, female athlete participation has increased by over 600%. By 2016, one in five girls in the U.S. played sports. Before Title IX passed, the number was one in 27. 

Unfortunately, after decades of progress bettering the lives of millions of women, the Biden administration has foolishly decided that men can be women if they really want to be. This administration has illegally changed the rules of the game, completely undermining the intention of Title IX, which was to protect women’s sex-based rights.

The Biden administration has redefined “sex” to mean “gender identity.” Now, according to the Department of Education, men who identify as women can join women’s teams, enter women’s spaces, and join female-only organizations such as sororities. The rewriting of the statute means that men who think they are women can take women’s team berths, medals, and scholarships; it also means that women no longer are guaranteed privacy and safety in women-only spaces. 

We cannot let this stand. It’s time to call a foul.

I was the 1986 U.S. gymnastics champion. I started gymnastics just three years after Title IX was passed. And from the time I was 10 years old, I trained between six to eight hours every day. I gave up a normal childhood to be the best I could be. I left school early every day; I moved away from home when I was 13; there were no dances or boyfriends. Just gymnastics.

I did it because I loved it, and I believed there was a place for me if I worked hard enough. I lost many times, more than I won, but it was always a fair fight. And I knew that if I kept working, I just might win one day, thanks to Title IX. 

As Olympian Nancy Hogshead-Makar has said, “[Title IX] was groundbreaking. There’s no way I would have gotten a college scholarship or gone to the 1984 Olympics if it hadn’t been for that statute.” 

Allowing male athletes to compete in women’s sports erases the stated intention of Title IX. Its erasure, and that of women, is based on a lie: that there is no difference between male and female bodies, that men are not stronger and faster than women. 

If we carry this lie through to its conclusion, there will be no sex-based categories in sports. When this happens, all the opportunities afforded to girls and women over the last 50 years will evaporate. The misogyny of this policy is astonishing. 

This issue should not be controversial or partisan. But it is. Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, with not one Democrat voting for it. 

Transgender activists claim that including men in women’s sports must be done in the name of inclusivity and that it involves such a small number of athletes that it can’t possibly make a difference.

They are wrong. There are too many examples to count (nearing 600) of transgender athletes competing, and winning, in women’s sports. And sometimes injuring women in basketball, volleyball, and rugby. 

Young women who watch this unfairness play out will eventually walk away from sports, if the women’s category isn’t completely eliminated first. Why compete when there is no chance for a fair shot? 

The Biden administration’s denial of reality in rewriting Title IX is nothing more than garden-variety sexism. I see it for what it is, and I’m going on the offense. 

I broke my femur at the 1985 World Gymnastics Championships and became the national champion less than a year later. Being an athlete taught me grit and resilience. Young female athletes must know when they stand up for themselves, they will not stand alone. They will stand shoulder to shoulder with a generation of female athletes who reaped the benefits of Title IX and aren’t about to pull the ladder up and away from the next generation.