Title IX is Mine
First UPenn agreed to comply with Title IX. Now two cases will go the Supreme Court for the final decision as to whether states can protect the integrity of girls' sports in order to uphold Title IX
There has been much progress in the restoration of Title IX’s original intent of late.
On July 1 2025, the University of Pennsylvania agreed to comply with all demands issued by the Department of Education regarding its Title IX adherence.
The July 1 announcement came after the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found the university in violation of Title IX for allowing 2022 graduate and male swimmer Will Thomas to compete on the UPenn women’s swimming and diving team during the 2021-22 season.
Penn released a statement affirming compliance with Title IX, restored awards and records stolen by Thomas to the female athletes who earned them and sent individual apology letters to the affected athletes.
Penn will also “adopt biology-based definitions” going forward ensuring that males are not competing on women’s teams in the future.
Just two days later, on July 3, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it has agreed to hear two cases challenging state bans on male athletes participating in girls’ sports. This decision will address whether states can legally exclude males who identify as girls from participating on female sports teams. The cases involve challenges to laws in Idaho and West Virginia.
The Supreme Court's decision to hear these cases comes after lower courts ruled against the state bans, citing violations of Title IX. But the lower court rulings against protecting the female category alter the meaning and intent of Title IX.
Title IX’s clear purpose is to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls. Not “gender identity.” It reads:
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
The lower court rulings favored male athletes identifying as girls/women in both K-12 and college sports. And seemed to extend the notion of “on the basis of sex” to include “gender identity.” But thinking of oneself as a woman or girl does not make it so.
The cases will be argued in the fall, with a decision expected in 2026.
At XX-XY Athletics, we made this ad — simply articulating the 37 words that changed everything for women and girls in 1972.
We also made this tee in honor of all the wins of late.
Great ad, Jennifer! My mother was the Title IX administrator in her school district in the 1970s. When she passed, my sister and I formed the "Margaret Schuler Scholarship for Feminists of Either Gender" in her honor at our former high school. My mother's early advocacy for women was one of the reasons I was a lifetime Democrat. In those days, the party was committed to ensuring that women had the same opportunities as men for everything that life offers, including the joy and accomplishment of competing in sport.
Perhaps because of my early commitment to equal opportunities for all people regardless of sex, race, ethnicity of religion, I resisted the idea that biological men could compete against women if they simply "identified" as women. How would women ever have an "equal opportunity" as men if they had to compete against men, who are biologically stronger and faster than women? Obviously, men's opportunity is to compete against men, and in that competition only the fastest and strongest will achieve victory. But all other men in that competition will share the dream of victory and dig deep to find how far they can go to achieve it. That is the opportunity that sports provides men.
If women's sports are open to men who choose to identify as woman, that is the opportunity that is taken away from women. That is a biological fact. Taking that opportunity from women by changing the definition of "sex" from biological to behavioral cannot possibly be constitutional and I suspect the eventual decision by SCOTUS will be 7-2 or even 8-1.
Unfortunately, as you experienced, I quickly learned that my common sense understanding of the term "sex" was no longer acceptable to the people who I considered to be fellow liberals. When it became at first acceptable and then even required for liberals to deny biological women the opportunity to compete fairly against only other biological women, I became alarmed. At first, I felt I was just slow to understand the issue, and I had a great deal of sympathy for transgender individuals who also wanted to experience the thrill and satisfaction of sporting competition. But I kept coming back to the basic unfairness of allowing biological men to compete against biological women, and the explicit words of Title IX. I, too, lost a few friends along the way but refused to change my mind.
So it was with great satisfaction and joy that I learned of the U Penn settlement. Common sense and constitutional law will prevail, and the overall benefit to women will be great!
And, btw, Margaret Schuler would be proud of your contribution to it all. On her behalf, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Powerful ad. Bring it on.