Pavlich: Women step up to save their sports

With the 50th anniversary of Title IX approaching in June, women are stepping up to save the dignity and integrity of their sports.

In recent weeks the alarm bells have been loudly ringing after University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who was on the men’s team until 2020, edged out a number of women on the podium during the NCAA swimming championships. 

Throughout the season any honest person watching Thomas could see the “competition” was anything but fair or dignified. And yet, officials from the NCAA allowed it to continue until the very end, ripping away final top placements for female athletes and ending swimming careers in dishonorable fashion. At the time Thomas took first place in the 500-meter women’s freestyle, there was still a profile on the university’s men’s swimming and diving website. The profile remains there today.

“It’s a common conception that we are all very disappointed and frustrated with someone who is — has capabilities more than us women have to be able to compete at this level and take opportunities away from other women. I have a teammate who did not make finals today because she was just bumped out of finals and it’s heartbreaking to see someone who went through puberty as a male and has the body of a male be able to absolutely blow away the competition,” a Virginia Tech swimmer told The Post Millennial about a teammate after the meet. “You go into it with a mindset that you don’t have a chance … it’s hard to compete against someone with the aerobic capacity the muscle development the body of a man. It’s hard.”

When the season finally came to a close, a number of women and coaches declared they’ve seen enough. 

“It’s hard to express the anguish the women’s swim community has experience this past week watching the 2022 NCAA Swim & Dive Championships. On one hand, we feel we are witnessing irrevocable damage to a sport that has transformed our own identities for the better. On the other hand, we have reconnected with each other in sisterhood after many busy years living our lives beyond the water’s edge. We are grateful for the many women who have stood up to publicly speak up on protest of your policies,” dozens of coaches and female swimmers, including NCAA champions and Olympians, wrote in a March letter to the NCAA Board of Governors. “The decisions of the NCAA this year hoped to appease everyone by allowing Lia Thomas to compete directly with women. Instead, the NCAA has successfully failed everyone. A target was placed on the back of a trans athlete subjecting this person to devastating national outcry and humiliation. This swimmer’s lone points for Penn this March catapulted a team to a top-20 program in the country after failing to score a single point last year. Additionally, women athletes competing in the meet were forced to swim in unfair direct competition therefore eliminating all integrity of the entire championship meet.”

“We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX this year. From the birth of the NCAA in 1906 until 1972, women had to fight to earn the law that provided equal opportunities for women in sports. It took a male to female transgender person one year to take the women’s swimming national championship title. This is not equality. Women’s standings, titles, records, and scholarships are suddenly at risk again. Opening the door to allowing natural born men to acquire precious, life altering financial aid packages often split up between multiple women per team defeats the very essence of the flagship legislation we are ironically celebrating this very year,” the letter continues.  

The NCAA hasn’t issued a public response. 

But the issue of biological men competing against women in their sports doesn’t end in college. 

Over in the UK, recently transitioned cyclist Emily Bridges planned to compete in the women’s British National Omnium Championship. The event was opened to female athletes for the first time in 2017. This year, female athletes threatened to boycott and Bridges was rightly disqualified.

“The trans woman cyclist Emily Bridges has been blocked from participating in the women’s British National Omnium Championship on Saturday after cycling’s governing body, the UCI, ruled she was ineligible,” the Guardian reports. “The UCI’s decision came amid a growing backlash from within the sport, with the Guardian understanding that a number of female riders were talking about boycotting the event in Derby because they felt that Bridges, who was on the Great Britain Academy programme as a male rider until being dropped in 2020, had an unfair advantage.”

Under threat of cancellation and shaming, these women have stepped up to save their sports. It’s time for more coaches, administrators and politicians to find the courage to do the same. The NCAA, which has shown nothing but cowardice until now, has an obligation to act. 

Pavlich is the editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.