White House Claims Biden’s Unpopular Title IX Rewrite Is an ‘Important Step’

August 1, the day the Biden administration’s Title IX rewrite was set to go into effect, has come and gone. This controversial rule change garnered immense pushback before it went into effect, and it only continues to do so. On Wednesday, the White House held a press briefing that discussed the topic, and EWTN White House Correspondent Owen Jensen used it as an opportunity to highlight how the new policy harms women and girls.

“The new Title IX went into effect,” Owen prefaced to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “But critics say the new Title IX hurts women and girls” by destroying “women’s sports by allowing biological men to compete directly against women.” Jean-Pierre fired back, “[E]very student deserves the right to feel safe. Every student deserves the right to feel safe in schools. That’s what the rule is all about: strengthening and restoring vital protections that the previous administration took away.”

The president’s spokeswoman also went on to say that the new rule is “an important step in an ongoing work to end campus sexual assault.” She then refused to respond to Owen’s questions concerning biological men being in women’s locker rooms, which have resulted in a number of concerning incidents.

In May 2021, a boy who identified as “gender-fluid” sexually assaulted a teenage girl in the girls’ bathroom at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County. This same boy transferred schools, only to victimize another innocent girl the same way. Another example includes the 18-year-old trans-identifying man who, going “by the name ‘Katie Dolatowski,’ assaulted a 10-year-old girl in a supermarket restroom, grabbing her by the face, shoving her into a stall, and demanding she take off her pants.”

As Mary Szoch, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, shared with The Washington Stand, for Jean-Pierre to say “that Title IX is about making every student ‘feel safe in schools,’ she is prioritizing the feelings of men who think that they’re women over the physical, mental, and emotional safety of girls. We can point to case after case,” she insisted, “where young girls have been physically in danger because of these woke policies that allow men in in spaces that are meant to be safe for women. And that’s something that the Biden administration needs to take seriously.”

As a former Division I athlete, Szoch reiterated that private spaces such as women’s locker rooms are not merely changing spaces. Rather, they’re “meant to be a place where teammates … become sisters.” But, she pointed out, “The only way that you can do that is if you’re able to be completely vulnerable with your teammates, and that can’t occur when you are feeling, at minimum, uncomfortable, and at most, as if you’re in danger of assault.”

Republican senators agree with Szoch about the dangers of opening sports to biological men, and this week, they redoubled their efforts, urging the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) to change their policies to protect women. On Tuesday, 23 GOP senators signed a letter and sent it to NCAA President Charlie Baker, stating, “The 2024 Summer Olympics are upon us, and the NCAA has boasted about its athletes’ participation,” they wrote. “Yet the NCAA has still taken no steps to protecting a critical portion of these athletes.”

The senators continued to articulate the biological advantages men have over women, including “having larger hearts, higher red blood count, greater lung capacity, longer endurance, larger muscle mass, differences in bone density and geometry, and lower body fat.” They concluded that “women deserve [an] even playing field and chance to compete, one that can only be achieved by ensuring that only females compete in women’s sports.” And as The Washington Times reported, “Women’s sports groups have pushed the NCAA for years to allow only women in women’s sports.” But after the Title IX rewrite took effect, “the issue took on new urgency.”

Like many advocates, Szoch thinks it’s past time for America’s biggest collegiate sports body to act. “I certainly hope that the NCAA will listen,” she told TWS. “As someone who competed at the Division 1 level, and on a daily basis practiced against men, I can tell you that male athletes have a significant physical advantage. … [T]here is no comparison between a Division I female basketball player and a Division I male basketball player.” Szoch implored, “[I]f the NCAA does not listen to this … male athletes dominating in women’s sports” will inevitably become “a regular occurrence.”

Meg Kilgannon, FRC’s senior fellow for Education Studies, agreed, pointing out that it’s important for both men and women to join this fight. “After nearly 10 years of working on this issue,” she said to TWS, “I am tired of hearing male commentators on sports broadcasters tell me there is nothing they can do, [and that] it’s up to women to solve this problem.” Really, she argued, men have a necessary role as protectors.

“[A]s a woman,” Kilgannon added, “I rely on men who love me to protect me and my children.” Not to mention the fact that “men are running sports from top to bottom,” and they “need to protect sports fairness from men who believe they are women.” As such, Kilgannon offered a special thanks to the “members of Congress who are standing up to protect women’s sports.”

 “The Biden administration has overplayed their hand here,” Szoch believes. At the end of the day, she said, “The average American parent doesn’t want to watch their daughter compete against a man who is physically stronger, faster, [and] quicker simply because of biological realities.”

And “athletes at the college level don’t want to compete in sports” that are inherently unfair. “One of the hallmarks of athletics is fairness,” Szoch insisted. “[W]ithout fairness, competition cannot exist the way that it has since the beginning of sports.” And if male athletes continue getting a free pass at dominating women’s sports, “what we’re going to see is the end of women’s sports.”