It was never about protecting women’s sports.
The same folks who’ve used defending women as cover to erase the handful of transgender athletes in youth and NCAA sports just rolled back guidance that would have made NIL (name, image and likeness) money subject to Title IX.
To put that in plain English, the Trump administration is giving schools permission to ignore the rules requiring equitable treatment of female athletes, telling them it’s OK to funnel their NIL millions to football and men’s basketball players while throwing women athletes a couple of pennies. If that.
But go on about all the things cisgender women have “lost” because of transgender athletes.
“Title IX says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student athletes,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said.
Title IX doesn’t say anything about how to define sex, either, but that hasn’t stopped transphobes and Trumpers from trying to use it as a cudgel against transgender athletes.
So much of what is happening right now is meant to distract you from noticing that someone is stabbing you in the guts. The obsession over transgender women in sports has never been anything more than a witch hunt, a license for cruelty. Oh, the proponents paint their cause as noble, styling themselves as standing up for women and women athletes.
But on issues that are actually causing women harm? They’re nowhere to be found, their silence speaking volumes.
On Wednesday, legislation was proposed in both the House and Senate to close loopholes that allow schools to skirt Title IX. A USA TODAY review in 2022 found that, for every $1 schools spent on travel, equipment and recruiting for their men’s teams, they spent 71 cents for their comparable women’s squads.
In just a two-year period, that added up to $125 million more spent on men than women in basketball, baseball and softball, golf, soccer, swimming and diving, and tennis.
Schools also are manipulating rosters to make it appear they’re in compliance, double-counting athletes and counting male practice players. They’re ignoring legitimate requests to add participation opportunities.
“The Fair Play for Women Act strengthens Title IX enforcement, brings real transparency to college and K-12 athletics, and ensures every girl gets the same shot at success as her male peers,” Alma Adams, a Democratic Representative from North Carolina, said in announcing the legislation, which is co-sponsored in the House by Lori Trahan, D-Massachusetts, and Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both of Connecticut, and Ron Wyden from Oregon.
Did any of the Republicans so hell-bent on “protecting” women’s sports co-sponsor the legislation? Or support it when many of these same lawmakers proposed it during the last session? Is Riley Gaines using her megaphone to lobby for this legislation? Or protesting schools getting the blessing to circumvent Title IX by providing extra benefits to male athletes in the form of NIL money?
Do the athletes who’ve invested so much of their time, energy and venom targeting transgender women not care that it’s their own schools actually robbing them of opportunities and making them less safe?
The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no.
President Donald Trump also wants to gut the Department of Education, which just so happens to be the agency responsible for adjudicating Title IX complaints. Those aren’t only complaints about inequities in sports, but sexual assault and harassment on campuses, as well.
Kind of big things if you’re sincere about wanting to protect women.
But that was never what this was about. And all the people who’ve joined in the hateful chorus because they don’t know a transgender person or are afraid of a changing world got played.
History has shown us that the erasure of one marginalized group does not end the hate; it emboldens it. It’s people of color and transgender men and women in the crosshairs now. But as the NIL decision indicates, it will eventually be all women, and your support for stripping others of their rights will do nothing to protect your own.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.