Coaching HER is evil

Gaslighting, manipulating, dehumanizing—there is no other way to describe this initiative

In the previous post, I introduced the Tucker Center and Nike’s “training resource,” Coaching HER, which was ostensibly designed to keep girls from dropping out of sports by re-educating coaches about their gender biases. Biases like boys are not girls.

Coaching HER has nothing to do with retaining girls. It’s not about girls at all.

--The Tucker Center and Nike ignored what's most important to girls—single-sex sports—in fact, did the opposite of what girls want, and built an entire initiative that erases the very definition of girl, and with it, all girls’ sex-based rights, and then goes on to gaslight coaches and girls into thinking that a boy is a girl because he says so. 

--They blamed coaches' gender biases and stereotypes for girls dropping out of sports. Their own research, other research, and comments from the director of Coaching HER do not support this conclusion. But coaches tend to be up-to-date on biological facts and sex differences as they relate to sports. As such, they are resistant to ideological nonscience, and are thus a prime target for “re-education.”

-- They framed well documented facts as bias, and used debunked ideological pseudoscience as fact.

Coaching HER is not about keeping girls in sports. It's about indoctrinating coaches into gender ideology and normalizing boys who identify as girls in girls sports. It's anti-girl, it's anti-reality, anti-science, it's well funded, worldwide, and one of the most insidiously damaging attacks on girls and girls’ sports I’ve seen. Below, I’ll show how I came to that conclusion.

First and foremost, both the Tucker Center and Nike have known for decades that single-sex sports and changing spaces are critical for retaining girls. From the Tucker Center’s own landmark 2018 report Developing Physically Active Girls: An Evidence-Based Multidisciplinary Model:

Girls matter: Empower girls by teaching girls their worth and human rights. Girls-only matters: Research clearly indicates girls tend to prefer single-sex PA [physical activity] for many reasons including freedom from constant comparison to boys, freedom from boys’ scrutiny and critical comments, dominance of space by boys, increased opportunity to develop skills and relationships, increased enjoyment, increased attention from instructors, and less embarrassment and worry about body image.”

Their research specifies girls prefer separation based on sex, not gender or gender identity. Girls see these issues with boys as sex-based, because they know boys are different socially, and especially physically. They know what a boy is. Clearly, girls have observed that sex matters in sports, and that they have a more positive experience in girls-only sports.

Best practices in Nike’s Empowering Girls program recommends:

“Foster safe sporting spaces for girls. Encouraging girls-only spaces, like locker rooms or bathrooms, can provide safe and comfortable environments. Ensure these spaces are well-lit, offer privacy for changing, are supervised by women and do not allow entry to non-participants. Where possible provide hygiene products such as deodorant and tampons. The aim is to provide girls with privacy, safety and comfort, particularly during a phase when their bodies are changing.”

Though this paragraph does not confirm a sex-based definition of girl, nor use “single-sex,” it does reference tampons, a product used by only one sex.

They knew how to retain girls in sports. Championing single-sex sports and changing spaces would have addressed many of the reasons girls drop out of sports, including the big one—concerns about body image. Fighting for single-sex sports would, as the Tucker Center knew, teach girls that they matter, that they have worth and human rights as a distinct sex class. It would have been a relatively easy and low-cost initiative since the infrastructure for girls-only sports already existed, and it would not require indoctrinating thousands of coaches and millions of girls into a strange anti-reality ideology.

But the Tucker Center and Nike didn’t do that. They ignored what girls wanted. In fact, they are aggressively promoting a system that further causes girls to quit sports. They focused their considerable resources on indoctrinating coaches into gender ideology and normalizing boys in girls sports. Sport participation in alignment with gender identity rather than sex is not supported by the majority of the public, coaches, or the science community. To keep up the facade that this initiative was about retaining girls and at the same time serving their true aim, the Tucker Center and Nike had to redefine girl. Interestingly, in the full 242-page text of their 2018 report, the Tucker Center defined girl as “any female under 18 years old.” No mention of identity. This appeared to be a sex-based definition, rather than ideological. Much of the research in that report is pre-2008, so that definition may be an artifact from days prior to the Tucker Center’s ideological capture. Their working definition now on the front page of Coaching HER:

“The term “girls” in Coaching HER refers to someone under the age of 18 who was assigned female at birth, or who identifies as a girl. Coaching HER is inclusive of gender-expansive identities.”

Adding those six words—or who identifies as a girl—nullifies any claim to benefiting girls, being about girls, the rights of girls, even the existence of girls as a distinct class of human being. By including a subset of boys in their definition of girls, they reveal this whole massive campaign is about normalizing boys in girls’ sports. Not only does Coaching HER ignore girls’ preference for single-sex sports and changing rooms, it does the exact opposite—it invites boys who identify as girls into girls’ sports and spaces, WHICH ADDS TO THE LIST OF REASONS GIRLS DROP OUT OF SPORTS. They erased the meaning of girl, and with it, girls’ sex-based rights and even the ability to articulate those rights. Coaching HER tells girls they don’t matter, they have no rights to their own sports and spaces, and must believe that a person they know to be male is actually a girl. The word evil comes to mind, though I don’t use it often. Indoctrinating girls through their coaches into an ideology that is objectively misogynistic, all the while claiming to benefit girls is evil.

Everything in the Coaching HER “training tool” sounds positive and empowering, something any coach would agree with, until you realize that every time they say girl, they’re including boys who identify as girls. Suddenly every statement is twisted into something anti-girl, a backhanded kick in the teeth. For example:

“At the core of Coaching HER® is the recognition that girls experience the world differently and are treated differently than boys, because they are girls.”

Now read that again and insert boys who think they are girls for the word girl. They recognize that boys and girls experience the world differently based on their sex, but then pervert their pro-girl flag waving by including a subset of boys. Developing breasts, hips, experiencing periods, female athlete triad, osteoporosis, having a one-in-nine chance of sexual assault—these are things that have enormous impact on girls in sports. A boy who identifies as a girl will never experience these things, and it’s offensive to pretend that they do.

Discomfort with body image is one of the main reasons girls drop out of sports. Coaching HER commanded that coaches “accept all body types and identities,” and that girls do the same. This exhortation was right above a reminder that a girl is anyone who identifies as a girl, so it’s inferred bodies with penises are included in “all body types.” Further on: “It is important to remember that body image is not just about our weight or body shape. It can also be about things like feeling as though our body does not match our gender identity.” The outward facing Coaching HER modules are very careful never to allude to males or male bodies, but buried in the Tucker Center’s full 242-page research report on which Coaching HER is based, is this:

“Most often, girls’ physical sex is consistent with their gender identity. However, for some girls their gender identity is inconsistent with the sex assigned to them at birth and they may identify as transgender when, for example, they internally feel female even though they were born with a body that appears male.”

I.e., a body with a penis. Using its insidious veiled language, Coaching HER implies a body with a penis is just another type of girl body, and not accepting that is a coach’s gender bias. It’s bias to think girls cannot have a penis. To keep girls from dropping out of sports, a coach was instructed to scrub that outdated idea and demand the same from the girls on the team. Not only should girls be comfortable sharing a locker room with a “girl” with a penis, coaches should shut down “body talk” or negative comments by team members. Of course, this makes sense in the context of single-sex sports, but it effectively silences any girl with the temerity to express her discomfort in sharing a private space with a boy. Coaching HER instructed coaches to gaslight girls, telling them that a boy is a girl, and their feelings of discomfort are unacceptable.

One of the tactics Coaching HER used to re-educate coaches was to frame scientific facts as stereotypes.

In one of the training modules, there was a list of “common stereotypes:”

Most of these are obvious stereotypes, but at least three are not, they’re facts: Girls mature faster than boys; Girls are not as fast or strong as boys; and Girls can’t throw, or they ‘throw like a girl.’ Coaching HER framed these as stereotypes, outdated ideas coaches should reconsider.

The fact is, girls do mature faster than boys. Girls reach puberty between ages 8-13, boys between 9-14. This is easily verifiable. When I spoke with Alicia Pelton, the director of Coaching HER, she used the trans activist playbook, that if there was any overlap at all between girls and boys, this was proof that there was no difference between boys and girls. Some girls mature later than some boys. But that does not disprove the norm. The idea that boys are physically significantly different from girls and don’t belong in girls’ sports? Stereotype, according to Coaching HER.

Girls are not as fast or strong as boys is fact, not stereotype. Greg Brown, a professor of exercise science at University of Nebraska at Kearney has studied prepubertal sex differences between boys and girls. He wrote for Reality’s Last Stand:

“Various tests, such as the Presidential Fitness Test, FitnessGram, Eurofit Fitness Test Battery, and other school-based physical fitness assessments, consistently show that boys tend to outperform girls of the same age in tests measuring muscular strength, muscular endurance, running speed, aerobic fitness, ball throwing, and kicking distance.”

To be meaningful, comparisons must be between equally matched individuals. Of course the top girl will be stronger and faster than an unathletic boy. That’s a meaningless comparison, one that’s often used by trans activists to show that boys don’t have an unfair advantage. The fact is, top girls are never as strong or as fast as the top boys. That’s how comparison works.

And girls can’t throw, or throw like a girl? Coaching HER deliberately used this exaggerated trope to make it seem sex differences were obvious stereotypes, but there is some fact behind this statement. In his study of prepubertal sex differences in sport, Greg Brown found:

“Skeletally, it’s been postulated there is a difference in shoulder structure because by two years old, boys throw farther, faster, and more accurately than girls.”

Coaching HER continuously reminded coaches that we all unconsciously believe these stereotypes and must work to uproot them. Like a struggle session. By mixing some “stereotypes” that are factual—girls are not as fast or strong as boys—with obvious stereotypes—girls should be well behaved, boys are expected to act out—this “training” insidiously casts doubt on biological facts.

Sometimes the research Coaching HER used told a different story than the one they intended. A section on gender stereotypes said, “Research indicates there is more difference within groups of girls and within groups of boys, than between girls and boys.” This idea is often used to justify inclusion of boys in girls’ sports. That research was done by Janet Shibley Hyde, who noted in her study:

“the gender similarities hypothesis does not assert that males and females are similar in absolutely every domain. The exceptions—areas in which gender differences are moderate or large in magnitude—should be recognized. The largest gender differences are in the domain of motor performance, particularly for measures such as throwing velocity and throwing distance. These differences are particularly large after puberty, when the gender gap in muscle mass and bone size widens. A second area in which large gender differences are found is some— but not all—measures of sexuality. Gender differences are strikingly large for incidences of masturbation and for attitudes about sex in a casual, uncommitted relationship.”

Oops. Awkward. Large differences in motor performance would seem to justify single-sex sports, and striking differences in incidence of masturbation and attitudes about casual sex could have some serious ramifications for girls who are forced to share a locker room with a boy. At best, Coaching HER’s scientific support is inconsistent.

Language and definitions were based in gender ideology, rather than scientific fact. I took a quiz in a Coaching HER training module in which I was to respond True or False to the statement There are two biological sexes. I chose True.

“Answer: Incorrect. Not quite! Assigned sex is a label that you’re given at birth based on medical factors, including your hormones, chromosomes and genitals. Most people are assigned ‘female’ or ‘male’, and this is what’s put on their birth certificates. When someone’s sexual and reproductive anatomy doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of ‘female’ or ‘male’, they may be described as intersex.”

Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright wrote an excellent essay on the sex binary, and specifically how trans rights activists deny this foundational biological truth to try to justify males in female sports. I suggest you read the whole thing, but to wit:

“The “sex binary” refers to the biological reality that there are only two sexes—male and female—and that these categories refer to individuals whose primary sex organs are organized around the production of either sperm (male) or ova (female). The “sex binary” does not entail that every human is unambiguously either male or female, even though the vast majority are. This is an important distinction, because adopting the second framing is inaccurate and plays into the hands of activists who seek to debunk the existence of only two sexes by calling attention to the existence of rare edge cases (i.e., “intersex” conditions).”

While the most forward-facing information Coaching HER presented was very careful not to appear too strident in its ideological indoctrination, they hit their stride in the training module entitled Recognizing Girls’ Identities. Coaches were reminded that everyone has a gender identity, “even you.” Ideological concepts were treated as scientific reality. For example, gender identity was defined as:

“An individual’s inner concept of self as a woman, a man, a blend of both or neither (non-binary). One's gender identity can be the same (cisgender) or different (transgender) from the cultural expectations of the sex assigned at birth. Gender identity is influenced by both environmental and biological factors. Increasingly popular gender identity phrases include: gender independent, gender creative, gender queer, gender fluid, gender expansive, gender non-conforming, and gender diverse. 63% percent of transgender and gender non-conforming people experience serious acts of discrimination—events that have a major impact on a person’s quality of life.”

Gender ideology is just that—an ideology, based on faith not material reality. Despite attempts to locate biomarkers for a transgender identity, or brain sex, none has been found. “Increasingly popular gender identity phrases” speaks more than the authors meant to convey about the trendiness and influence of social contagion in young teens’ discovery of ever more special but hard-to-define identities. Including in the definition the statistic regarding “acts of discrimination” reminded coaches of the well trod “most marginalized” nature of the boy who identifies as a girl, and the dire results of discrimination. Could not affirming a boy’s female identity be considered an act of discrimination? Could believing girls sports should be single-sex negatively impact a trans-identified boy’s quality of life? Does that feel strangely manipulative?

Again in this module, coaches were reminded of affinity bias: “All of us experience Affinity Bias which can result in us liking, understanding and favoring those with identities that are similar to us. [and even disliking those who are different]. Effectively coaching girls with different identities can require some additional learning, empathy, understanding, and listening skills.” While this is certainly valid in the context of other identities mentioned—race, religion, cultural, economic, disabilities—it loses validity when it includes sex (boys who identify as girls). It’s yet another in Coaching HER’s unending conflation of recognizing sex with gender bias.

On the front page of Coaching HER there are several images of Muslim girls in hijab. In the Recognizing Identities module they cherrily suggest: “Emphasize that gender, religion, talents, ethnicity, and family structure diversity make the team more competitive.” First, it’s unexplained how diversity of religion or ethnicity or family structure, for that matter, make the team more competitive. If by gender they mean diversity of sex, then yes, having a male on the team might make it more competitive, but I’m guessing that was a Freudian slip. Most importantly, Coaching HER failed to address the obvious conflict they created by including trans-identified boys. If there is a trans-identifying boy on the team, a Muslim girl will self-exclude. Religion is one reason girls drop out of sports. Religious requirements for single-sex sports and spaces was discussed at length in the Tucker Center’s 2018 report, but apparently including boys who identify as girls was more important than retaining Muslim girls. Or any girl who wanted single-sex sports.

In an example in which a nonbinary athlete joined the team, Coaching HER recommended: “Ensure non-binary athletes' safety by planning for appropriate changing rooms and bathrooms at all games, tournaments, and competitions. Discuss these needs with host sites in advance.” No mention of the safety and privacy of all the girls involved. It also suggested that coaches bring up examples of trans or nonbinary athletes like Quinn, Nikki Hiltz, Layshia Clarendon and Chris Mosier to “normalize identities.” All of these athletes are female competing in women’s sports, except for Mosier who, despite testosterone, was never competitive in the male category. If Coaching HER believes a trans-identified boy is a girl, why not bring up trans-identified male athletes like Lia Thomas or Aayden Gallagher?

For unknown reasons, Coaching HER recommended coaches download and discuss with their team the Matrix of Oppression, which sounds like and is an exercise from a DEI workshop.

At the end of the module on Recognizing Girls’ Identities under Helpful Guides was the Gender Unicorn. My spirit was flagging at this point in my indoctrination, and I’m sure the Tucker Center and Nike anticipated coaches, like me, would not bother to click on that link. But of course I did, and was rewarded. I implore you to do the same.

Of particular note is the “assignment and classification of people as male, female, intersex, or another sex.” Unlike previous Coaching HER definitions that included three sexes (intersex is not a third sex), this one goes a bit farther into the gendersphere with an undefined and scientifically unreferenced “another sex.” So, the Coaching HER “training” is neither biologically accurate, nor even consistent in its falsehoods.

“It’s important we don’t simply use ‘sex’ because of the vagueness of the definition of sex and its place in transphobia.” Here’s where things really got interesting. Using the concept of sex is transphobic. This blew through the border between a scientifically supported training resource (if that had ever been a thing), straight into virulent trans activism. That link leads to a 2014 article in the LGBTQ+ zine AutoStraddle entitled It’s Time For People To Stop Using The Social Construct of “Biological Sex” To Defend Their Transmisogyny. Without scientific references, the author wrote,

“sex isn’t the Ultimate Biological Reality that transphobes make it out to be. There’s nothing intrinsically male about XY chromosomes, testosterone, body hair, muscle mass or penises.”

That, from Mey Rude, a self-described “fat, trans, Latina lesbian,… a writer, journalist, and a trans consultant and sensitivity reader.” While eye-watering in her delivery, Rude managed to convey concisely what Coaching HER had spent millions of dollars and unspeakable hours of my time dancing around. Hey transphobes, I mean, coaches, take it from Mey Rude,

“transmisogynists and transphobes go back to that old excuse that they are just standing up for the reality of “biological sex” when they spew their ignorance and hate. All this needs to stop and it needs to stop now.”

This would make for great comedy were it not so deadly serious for girls. When Alicia Pelton, director of Coaching HER staunchly defended the initiative, I have to assume she, the Tucker Center, and Nike knowingly perpetrated every crime of pseudoscience, every outright lie, every bit of manipulation, every inducement for coaches to gaslight girls while they pretended to pat them on the head.

This crime against girls is going on right now. Coaching HER is free and accessible to anyone. I urge you to take the online training modules and provide your feedback as requested.