Most people know Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) as the SEC legend who led Auburn football to a national championship. What they might not realize is that he spent his early years on the basketball court, coaching high school girls. Tuberville was there when Title IX exploded on the scene, opening doors for girls to compete and excel. And he’ll be there, he vows, when America finally takes back the ground lost to biological boys on our daughters’ turf.

That became a much easier lift Thursday when a federal court handed down a massive victory for Americans by blocking the Biden administration’s attempt to completely rewrite the Title IX rule to favor trans-identifying students. As Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) points out, “The district court ruling applies nationwide and to every part of the Biden Title IX rule, meaning the rule is completely invalidated, and the U.S. Department of Education is unable to enforce it — anywhere.”

It is, as ADF President, CEO, and General Counsel Kristen Waggoner described it, “a colossal win for women and girls across the country.” And frankly, expert and senior advisor for Concerned Women for America Doreen Denny told The Washington Stand, it’s a win for women “in a war we shouldn’t have to be fighting.”

This ruling, Denny continued, “is the one we needed to dismantle Biden’s destruction.” Frankly, she continued, “It should be the shot heard across the nation warning judicial activists and rogue actors in every school, government agency, and sports organization — including the NCAA — that policies pushing trans identity as the meaning of ‘sex’ under Title IX are invalid. With this decision and its nationwide application,” she explained, “no entity receiving federal funds can claim that the meaning of sex under Title IX law includes a rainbow soup of self-declared ‘gender identities.’”

As other cases wind their way through the legal system, the best thing Congress can do is solidify these victories with legislation. “With President Trump’s resounding [win] last November, the American people sent a clear message to Washington that they want to protect and preserve the original purpose of Title IX,” Coach Tuberville stressed in a new Outkick op-ed. “One of the primary reasons President Trump won in a landslide is because he ran on the issue of saving women’s sports. Seventy percent of Americans agree: men don’t belong in women’s sports or locker rooms.”

Their time of invading women’s spaces is up, Republicans insist. As a sign of just how committed they are to undoing the damage of the Biden years, GOP leaders are putting Rep. Greg Steube’s (R-Fla.) The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act on a fast-track for passage. As part of Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) strategy for moving quickly on conservative priorities, 12 bills that were approved by the House last year are being bundled in a special rules package so they can bypass regular order. The upside is that they won’t have to start from scratch on issues they already agreed on in the 118 Congress — including the preservation of Title IX.

Under the Steube language, Title IX would only recognize gender based on “a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Any school or district that ignores the definition would lose federal funding for their athletic programs.

That’s just common sense, Steube argued. “The radical left is not in step with the American people on the issue of protecting women’s sports. Americans have loudly spoken that they do not want men stealing sports records from women, entering their daughters’ locker rooms, replacing female athletes on teams, and taking their daughters’ scholarship opportunities.” His legislation, like Tuberville’s in the Senate, “stands for truth, safety, and reality: men have no place in women’s sports. Republicans have promised to protect women’s sports, and under President Trump’s leadership, we will fulfill this promise.”

Debate on the House version of the bill could come as early as Tuesday, Hill sources say. That would be music to Tuberville’s ears, who, along with Steube and other conservatives, have been fighting for a level playing field in women’s sports for more than a year. It’s especially personal for the coach, who announced that he’s welcoming his first granddaughter this spring. “I want for her what so many young women before her benefited from since Title IX became law in 1972. I want her to have the same opportunities available to her, without having to worry about men competing against her, harming her, or invading her privacy. I’m sure there are many parents and grandparents across the country that want the same for their girls.”

In the meantime, President-elect Donald Trump is lining up the executive branch to take whatever action he can. “The expectation for the Trump administration,” FRC’s Meg Kilgannon told TWS is that “getting men out of women’s sports would be a day one executive action. We can expect immediate action at President Trump’s Education and Justice Departments to correct the horrific errors of Biden and Obama in order to reestablish common sense protections for all students and parental rights.”

And if parents have learned anything, it’s that they won’t get any help from the NCAA — no matter how many lawsuits and player protests they face. In the days leading up to the holiday recess, senators grilled the association’s disinterested president, Charlie Baker, who’s ignored the issue since taking the helm in early 2023. His response to the avalanche of complaints? It’s not our fault that men are in the women’s locker rooms, elbowing women off of podiums, or stealing their opportunities.

To senators like Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Baker’s responses boggled the mind. “The only person who doesn’t seem to bear any responsibility in this is you and the NCAA, who are the governing body! And your testimony here today is you’re not even subject to Title IX. Mr. Baker, I can’t tell you how disappointed this makes me. But not just disappointed, frankly, infuriated for the student-athletes who are suffering because of your policies. And you won’t even defend them. You won’t even take responsibility. It’s outrageous. It’s totally outrageous.”

Worse, as Tuberville points out, girls are left twisting in the wind — forced to defend themselves as the “adults in the room” stay silent — or, equally disturbing, speak out and get punished. “Coaches and administrators, stand up for your athletes — or get out of the profession,” he fumed at a roundtable on women’s sports in D.C. last year. It shouldn’t be up to girls to fight this battle, he admonished. “It’s for coaches, administrators, athletic directors,” he said. But in so many cases, “They’re a joke,” Tuberville shook his head. “They don’t fight. They go along with the norm … they want to keep their jobs.”

Americans are about to see who else wants to keep their jobs when these bills come up for a vote in the House and Senate. It’ll be the first time Democrats will be forced to put themselves on the record on an issue that almost everyone believes contributed to Kamala Harris’s shellacking on November 5. In the past, when these debates came up, Tuberville says that 10 to 12 female Democrats have consistently voted against women. “Do you have daughters?” he would ask them. “Do you really believe this?” But “they don’t have an answer,” the coach says.

Very soon, they’ll need one — or the last election will be one of many harsh reminders about where this radicalism leads.