Republican Bill Would Protect Women’s Sports by Defunding Them
Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville will propose denying funding to women’s athletics if they allow trans women to compete.
by Evan Urquhart
A Republican Senator has a plan to protect women’s sports that seems as if it might destroy women’s sports. According to the Washington Examiner, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has proposed denying federal funding to any entity that allows transgender women to compete. It would also enshrine a definition of woman in law that relied on assigned sex at birth. Because the overwhelming majority of women who play sports are not trans, the effect would primarily hurt cisgender women, by denying their athletic associations federal funds.
screenshot from the Washington Examiner
About 3.5 million girls currently play sports, roughly 43 percent of students who play sports. Title IX, which forbids discrimination against women in education, including athletics, was one of the primary drivers of increased participation by girls. The text of the law states: 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 education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Conservatives have long found reasons to object to Title IX, including complaining that it was hurting men’s sports in 2002, and vehemently opposing measures to protect women from sexual assault and rape being added to the law. In recent years, Title IX has been increasingly interpreted to mean that transgender students can’t be discriminated against on the basis of sex, which makes sense since that’s exactly what the law prohibits. (Title X, which is also mentioned in the above passage, provides funding for family planning.)
As a plan, this seems fully consistent with the conservative belief that government should not be involved in funding programs for the public good, but less consistent with their stated goal of protecting women’s sports. Defunding women’s sports is the sort of “protection” only a conservative could love.
