US sports organizations have announced they will keep men out of women's sports ONLY because they have to. Because: money

When the right decision is made for the wrong reason, women lose

Some questions for you:

Are you at all discomfited by the sudden domino-like policy changes by US national governing bodies that mandate women’s sports for women only, even though this is what you’ve been wanting to happen for more than a decade?

Are you wondering why all these organizations came to the startlingly obvious conclusion that the female category should be for females now—all within the last year—since the facts that underpin women’s sports have not changed, well, ever?

Does the absolute uniformity of motivation for keeping men out of women’s sports—to comply with Trump’s executive orders—fill you with unease?

Do you realise that, in 2003 when the IOC first allowed men to compete in women’s sports, and in 2010 when the NCAA followed suit, they were not forced to do this by executive order? Quite the opposite—they considered the inclusion of males in women’s sports a moral imperative.

Are you bothered by the fact that organizations whose sole job is ensuring that women’s sports is fair and safe and composed of women had to be forced to do that job under threat of financial and legal consequences?

Is it at all disturbing that not one of these organizations has mentioned preserving the integrity of women’s sports as even an ancillary reason for mandating sex-based sports?

Is there the tiniest niggle that not one sports organization in charge of governing women’s sports mentioned that ensuring women’s sports is female-only is simply the right thing to do?

Are you plagued by doubts about sports organizations who cannot be bothered to hide their bald contempt for the safety, fairness, and integrity of women’s sports by openly admitting they are only doing this under extreme duress?

Do you feel these organizations have women’s best interests at heart?

How do you feel about the future of these executive order-driven, financially motivated policies? Good? Snowball’s chance in hell?

My goodness, aren’t the big sports organizations in the US suffering ! USOPC, NCAA, and on down the line to national governing bodies like USA Track and Field, USA Swimming, USA Cycling, and even niche sports that have for decades enjoyed a hegemony of misogyny like USA Fencing and USA Hockey—they’ve all had to bite the bullet and make women’s sports for women. Dammit. You can hear their teeth grinding, the black humor—eh, this too shall pass, like a kidney stone.

Trump, who we all know has only one view of pussy, I mean, women, and has since gone on to flood the system with bullshit and war as per his playbook, casually and immediately took the pliers to sports orgs’ balls and squeezed off the money. Not because he cared or knew one freaking thing about women’s sports, but to mess with the libs. It was an obvious and easy place to score political points with the public who overwhelmingly approves of female-only female sports.

From ESPN: “The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under ‘USOPC Athlete Safety Policy’ and references Trump’s executive order, ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,’ signed in February. That order, among other things, threatens to ‘rescind all funds’ from organizations that allow transgender athlete participation in women’s sports.”

Wait, rescind all funds?! What the holy!? This is getting serious.

“The USOPC informed national governing bodies in July 2025 that they must comply with an executive order from President Trump intended to ‘keep men out of women’s sports,’ which applies to high school, college, and elite-level, Olympic-related sports.”

Sports organizations have recognized the executive orders as political performance. It’s easy to play that game—you don’t even have to pretend to care about women. Yes, it’s painful in the short term, but it has to be done. For appearances. For the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. Because: money. Because they will lose their cushy job if they don’t play the game.

Think back to 2003 and 2010 and all dates in between then and now—the USOPC and the NCAA called inclusion of men in women’s sports a moral imperative. A “human right.” This, in spite of the fact that they aggressively excluded anyone who objected to this obvious destruction of women’s rights, and ignored every shred of evidence that, without exception, showed that allowing men in women’s sports would be unfair, dangerous, and would undermine the purpose of women’s sports. Nonetheless, they considered the erasure of the most important category boundary in sports, something that has never been done or even considered in the history of sports, a moral imperative, a human right. They wept thinking of the “rights” of men who claimed to be women. But when they think now about women, 51% of the population, they must be forced by contortion of their pocketbooks to grudgingly give women their due. They can’t seem to work up much weepy empathy for the human rights of half the population.

It’s even more remarkable that Title IX, a document built on the recognition of women as a separate but equal sex class deserving of rights based on their sex, ever became a federal law. It centered women. Sports organizations have never had that understanding of women.

Historically, major sports organizations vehemently opposed even offering women’s sports, and only came around to it when it became financially necessary. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Olympic movement, excluded women from the Olympic Games saying women’s competition would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and unseemly.” After the International Women’s Sports Federation organized their own Women’s Olympiad, Coubertin was forced by public pressure and his desire to control the Olympic brand to include women’s competition. Note: right from the beginning, inclusion of women’s sports had nothing to do with recognizing or celebrating the achievements of women, but rather was a business decision made to benefit the men who ran the Olympic enterprise. By 1972, the year Title IX passed, male athletes still outnumbered female athletes at the summer Olympic Games by a rate of six to one. Since 2007, the Olympic charter has forced (not a suggestion) every sport to field a women’s division. Again, not to advance women’s sports or to provide more opportunities for women—it has nothing to do with women. It’s a business decision, to shine up the “gender parity” reputation of the Olympic brand, and one that sports governing bodies did not take to without considerable pressure.

The NCAA bitterly fought Title IX’s mandate to provide equal opportunities for women’s sports for ten years, saying it would take money away from men’s football and basketball, that it didn’t even apply since they don’t directly receive federal funds. They even sued the federal government saying Title IX was illegal. That lawsuit was dismissed in 1975. In an amazingly similar scenario to the man-centric Olympics, the NCAA ended up offering women’s sports, with coaching and championships and facilities, strictly as a way to drive the AIAW, that had organized women’s sports, out of business. Again, offering women’s sports was a way to cement their control over their world, college sports. It was a business decision that had nothing to do with recognizing the human rights of half the population. When I recently asked the NCAA if they had considered the preponderance of scientific evidence for mandating female-only women’s sports, or even (god forbid) the human right of women to sex-based sports and spaces, the communications agent pointed me to their press release. Nope, they hadn’t. President Charlie Baker was happy for the “clarity” the executive orders provided because, apparently, he’d been confused about whether men should be allowed in women’s sports. But the immediate and catastrophic loss of federal funds helped clear up his confusion. Translation: business decision that unavoidably protects women’s sex-based rights.

Some international sports organizations—World Athletics, World Rugby, World Aquatics, Cycling, and with leadership change and the debacle of the 2024 women’s boxing competition as motivation, the IOC—have, of their own accord, ensured female-only sports at the elite level. That sense of moral and scientific rectitude has not translated to their US affiliates. US sports organizations, quick to allow men in women’s sports, have grudgingly, foot-draggingly acquiesced to Trump’s executive orders as the latest business decision. It’s temporary. Necessary until the next administration comes along, when, hopefully, they can go back to allowing men in women’s sports. That’s where their heart is. That’s what their moral compass points to.

As history has shown, when women’s sports are not valued as a human right, as simply the right thing to do because: women, women lose. If US sports organizations, from the USOPC to NCAA to all the individual national governing bodies, don’t recognize women as worthy of their own sports, as men are, women’s sports will continue to be a political football. After more than a century, seeing women as a distinct yet equally worthy, fully human demographic has proven a task of Olympic proportion for US sports organizations. As they have loudly, proudly announced, it hasn’t happened yet.