Where Are All The Female Star Athletes During This Cultural Reckoning?

Not one currently competing female star has spoken up to defend the very category that made their success possible.

As we near the end of Title IX month, my thoughts on this landmark legislation and why we need to defend it, as published in Outkick.

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This is the moment we get real about standing up for women and girls.

Even though Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged in April that it was "deeply unfair" for boys to compete in girls’ sports, the California Department of Education (CDE) and California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) have continued to allow males to compete — and win — in women’s sports.

At the California CIF Championships in June, a male athlete swept gold in the high jump and triple jump and took silver in the long jump, displacing female athletes. Lelani Laruelle should have won gold, with Jillene Wetteland and Julia Teven placing second and third. Katie McGuinness was pushed to fourth in the long jump. Reese Hogan, who won her triple jump section, was denied a state title.

And now the Trump administration is going on offense. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued a proposed resolution. California has 10 days to rescind the titles and awards given to those who competed and won in women’s categories and issue apologies to the female athletes affected by this injustice. But this is a short-term fix to a long-standing erosion of our rights.

This isn’t just federal enforcement. It’s a cultural reckoning.

As we mark the 53rd anniversary of Title IX, the silence from America’s athletic elite is deafening. Not one currently competing female star — not Jordan Chiles, Caitlin Clark, Coco Gauff, or Sophia Smith — has spoken up to defend the very category that made their success possible.

And not a single major brand — not Nike, Adidas, Lululemon or Athleta — has stood up for the protection of women’s sports. Their silence says everything.

Title IX was a hard-won promise: that no person, based on sex, would be denied opportunities in education or athletics. But that promise is being broken by apparatchiks protecting their ideology in California, Maine, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, and my home state of Colorado.

Girls are being told to stay quiet and accept their erasure — not just when they lose to male athletes, but when their discomfort is dismissed, their training devalued, and their rightful place on the podium stolen. And to add insult to injury, they are vilified as bigots if they dare to stand up in their defense.

If we don’t take back Title IX, no one will.

Since Title IX passed in 1972, girls’ participation in high school sports has soared 1000%. I was born in 1969. I was one of its earliest beneficiaries.

I started gymnastics in 1974, just two years after the law’s passage. Before 1972, if you were an athletic little girl like me, your options were limited. But I was lucky. I was a busy kid who could often be found "bouncing off the walls" and my parents sent me to gymnastics.

After Olga Korbut charmed the world in the 1972 Olympics, little girls across the country begged their parents to let them take gymnastics. Because of Title IX, entrepreneurial coaches saw an opportunity: parents would want their daughters in athletics because they would have the opportunity to compete throughout high school and possibly even secure a college scholarship. Sports were no longer a dead end for girls.

I was one of those girls. After starting gymnastics at the age of 5, I made my first national team at 11. And by the time I was 17, I became the national champion.

I trained 40 hours a week and I learned that if I worked hard enough at this thing that I loved, I could be successful. I learned to get up when I fell down, and keep trying when I lost. I mastered the skill that made Olga Korbut famous – a backflip on the balance beam – at just 8 years old. And just two years later, I perfected a double back and a triple twist on the floor exercise.

I strived to beat my own ranking each year in making the national team. In climbing from my 12th place junior ranking to being first in the entire country, I honed grit and perseverance. And I found that when I set my mind to something, there was nothing I couldn’t do. Including coming back from a broken femur at the 1985 World Championships to win the National Championship just nine months later.

Girls who compete in sports get better grades, are more likely to graduate from high school and go to college, and they have more confidence. And according to a 2015 study by ESPNW, 94% of women in C-suite positions played sports, with 52% having competed at the collegiate level.

This is also me. I moved on from gymnastics to attend Stanford University and then worked in the corporate sector in fashion and retail. I climbed the ladder when there weren’t many women in the C-suite.

After 14 years at Levi’s, I became the Chief Marketing Officer and then the Brand President. And now I am the founder and CEO of my own start-up athletic clothing brand called XX-XY Athletics.

States like California are eroding the meaning and intent of Title IX, and along with it, this crucial sport-to-leadership pathway. When just one male breaches the boundaries of women’s sports, women’s sports no longer exist. And girls no longer have the opportunity that I had to compete on a level playing field. Before long, boys will win titles in every girl’s athletic event. And eventually, girls will stop competing altogether.

I am thankful that President Nixon signed Title IX into law on June 23, 1972. He gave little girls like me the opportunity to pursue our dreams in sports, and sports gave us the confidence and grit to pursue our dreams in life.

We the people need to join the Trump Administration in the fight to protect our daughter’s opportunities. 80% of Americans agree that women’s sports must be for females only. Yet far too many remain silent for fear of reprisal.

But if we all stand together, we can’t lose. Our daughters are counting on us.