On Thursday, current and former NCAA female athletes, coaches, and parents will rally outside of the 2024 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, to demand that the organization stop discriminating against female athletes by allowing males to compete in women’s sports.
The organizers say the rally’s theme, “We Won’t Back Down,” “reflects the determination of female athletes and coaches to get the NCAA to revoke its controversial and unscientific Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy.”
The policy allows males who identify as women to participate in women’s sports if they suppress their natural testosterone for at least one year and achieve levels set by the governing bodies of their particular sport.
The event is endorsed by Arizona Women of Action (AZWOA), which has filed to intervene in a lawsuit to protect Arizona’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which prohibits biological males from playing on girls’ sports teams at public schools.
“NCAA President Charlie Baker refuses to meet in good faith with top collegiate female athletes,” said Kim Miller, founder of AZWOA. “Can’t be a bigger penalty in sports than putting biological men up against women. Is this really the look they want—replacing Fairness with anti-science Dogma? Stop penalizing our daughters. We need everyone to stand up for women’s rights and give us fair play.”
🆕Join us this Thursday at 11am MT in Phoenix, AZ as we rally for #OurBodiesOurSports at the @NCAA Convention. It’s time to tell the NCAA to stop discriminating against women.💪🔥
Learn more 👇https://t.co/3TNEiUGv9S@icons_women @ADFLegal @ICFSport @WomensLibFront @YWforA… pic.twitter.com/Envg4gwdZA
— IWN (@IWN) January 9, 2024
A comprehensive review of the scientific literature by IWLC and IWF reveals that hormone injections do not eliminate the male athletic advantage over females. The report also concludes that, even without any male athletic advantage, the participation of males in women’s sports takes away opportunities for women to compete.
In Phoenix, swimmers Riley Gaines, Paula Scanlan, Kaylee Alons, and volleyball player Macy Petty will continue to call on NCAA President Charlie Baker to meet with them to hear how allowing men in women’s sports hurt them. Baker has ignored numerous requests to meet with female athletes against whom the NCAA has discriminated.
The group says, “Women have come too far to be erased.”
The rally is sponsored by Our Bodies, Our Sports, a coalition of women’s advocacy groups from across the political spectrum, including Independent Women’s Forum, Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), Women’s Declaration International (WDI-USA), Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), Champion Women, International Consortium on Female Sport, Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, Concerned Women for America, Alliance Defending Freedom, Young Women for America, Independent Women’s Law Center, and Independent Women’s Network.
This event is the fourth Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition event featuring female athletes and coaches speaking out against men in women’s sports. Previous events include the 2022 rally in Washington, D.C., to mark the 50th Anniversary of Title IX, the 2023 rally at the NCAA Convention in San Antonio, TX, and the 2023 rally at the USA Cycling National Championships in Knoxville, TN, which succeeded in pushing Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to bar biological male athletes from competing in the women’s cycling division.
The “We Won’t Back Down” rally will promote fair athletic policies rooted in science and advocate for female athletes and the elimination of discrimination against them in their own sport.
“Shame on Charlie Baker for continuing to enforce this discriminatory policy,” said Jennifer C. Braceras, vice president for Legal Policy at Independent Women’s Form and founder of Independent Women’s Law Center. “The NCAA may not be bound by Title IX, but the schools that make up its membership are, and the NCAA has an obligation to help its member schools comply with equal opportunity mandates, not subvert them.”
Riley Gaines, an Independent Women’s Forum ambassador, added, “Female athletes work our entire lives to compete in sports, only to have the NCAA destroy our even playing field. This devalues female athletes and women in general,” ahead of participating in her fourth Our Bodies, Our Sports event. “Sex-based categories are important for competitive sports just like age classifications and weight categories. We are asking very little of the NCAA. Maintain the fairness necessary for competition and safety.”
“Female athletes have fought long and hard for equal opportunities, and they deserve to compete on a level playing field. Men and women are different, and those real physical differences make it unfair to force women and girls to compete against bigger, faster, and stronger males,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Rachel Rouleau. “For more than 50 years, Title IX has protected female athletes so that they can compete and win. But the NCAA’s regressive policies ignore biological reality and harm women. We are calling on the NCAA to stop discriminating against female athletes and establish policies to protect women’s sports.”
Following the rally calling on the NCAA to stop discrimination, the athletes, coaches, parents, and sponsor organizations will hand deliver a new demand letter and petition to the NCAA signed by thousands of female athletes from across the country.