The fight to protect the integrity of girls’ sports goes beyond keeping biological males out of competitions. For years, advocates have demanded the revocation of titles previously awarded to transgender-identifying athletes, asserting that those honors rightfully belong to female competitors. After relentless pleading, a glimmer of hope may be emerging from the Department of Education.

On Wednesday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon met with an all-female group of reporters at the department’s headquarters to mark the 53rd anniversary of Title IX. She addressed the Title IX Special Investigations Team (SIT), which was established in April through a joint task force with the Department of Justice to examine cases where trans-identifying athletes have received awards and titles in female-designated competitions.

As reported by Breitbart, “SIT investigations have already been opened in California, Pennsylvania, Maine, and Wyoming, the secretary said. Between 45 and 60 letters have been sent out to educational institutions on potential Title IX and Title VI — which prohibits racial discrimination — violations in government-funded schools.” Additionally, “SIT has also launched a formal Title IX investigation into the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League after a transgender softball pitcher dominated a girls’ high school game, getting the team to the state championships for the first time.”

As McMahon put it, “We’ve taken a very strong effort here at the Department of Education now to investigate and to look at these issues as they come to our attention, because I think it’s just so important.” Also, during Wednesday’s report, she spotlighted the experience of Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer and vocal advocate for women’s sports, who was forced to compete against male-born swimmer Lia Thomas at the 2022 NCAA Championships. McMahon lamented the unfairness, saying, “Women and girls who work and train and go to the Olympics spend all this hard-earned money and effort and time… then to just be bested — not in their own lane, in their own class — but just because there are guys that are competing against them. I just think that’s unfair.”

When McMahon first launched SIT, she made clear: “To all the entities that continue to allow men to compete in women’s sports and use women’s intimate facilities: there’s a new sheriff in town. We will not allow you to get away with denying women’s civil rights any longer.” This came shortly after President Donald Trump’s executive order from February, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which aimed to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

While the mechanics of reversing titles remain undefined, the prospect has sparked enthusiasm among advocates who view it as a step toward justice. However, some expressed caution at the complexity of the issue, noting that correcting past wrongs cannot fully erase the emotional and competitive toll on female athletes. That’s what Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity, highlighted in her comments to The Washington Stand.

“While no one can ever undo the harm done by the Biden administration and the NCAA’s allowance of men into women’s sports,” she explained, “a move by the Trump administration’s Department of Education to reverse the titles given to men is a major step in correcting the history books.”

According to Szoch, “No matter who was on the podium, or what the NCAA said, Lia Thomas did not win in the 2022 NCAA women’s swimming championships, because Lia Thomas is a man — and it is impossible for a man to win a women’s event. History should reflect a woman winning this event.” She further urged that historical records should include a note acknowledging how “the woke ideology of the Left allowed a man to stand at the top of the first-place podium,” ensuring that “Americans never forget the evils and harms done to women in the name of making men with gender dysphoria feel welcome.”

As the Department of Education advances its initiative, the potential reversal of titles awarded to trans-identifying athletes marks a profound policy shift, decisively departing from the previous administration’s approach, which often promoted biological men over women. Yet, it also underscores the broader challenge of those fighting for fairness and accountability in women’s sports. Some argue this could mark a turning point, but the path to implementation and its long-term impact remains to be seen.