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The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) will hold its annual convention in Phoenix from January 10th to 13th. Discussions about name, image and likeness compensation rules and whether college athletes are university employees are sure to dominate the proceedings. The NCAA's Female Athlete of the Year will also be announced.
None of this discussion matters for current and future female college athletes unless the question of what it means to be a female athlete in women's sports is still unresolved.
Incoming NCAA president Charlie Baker had a golden opportunity to take the reins and address this high-profile failure in women's sports, but he missed it.
NCAA President Charlie Baker arrives for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on October 17, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images)
In the glow of the announcement that he would replace Mark Emmert just over a year ago, Baker was cast in a positive light as an executive capable of navigating rough waters and difficult problems. His tenure as Republican governor of liberal Massachusetts certainly proved this.
NCAA won't protect female athletes from transgender takeover of sports
Women's organizations that advocate for the rights of female athletes, such as Concerned Women for America, responded optimistically to the news. Baker's appointment was a sign that a reset might be possible.
Things got even worse last year as women in the NCAA saw men selling women down the river by asserting their own identities and declaring that they could be better female athletes. Leah Thomas' dominance in Division I women's swimming, including being nominated as “Female Athlete of the Year” by the University of Pennsylvania, left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth. For female athletes, it was a betrayal.
But Baker never hit the reset button, never even paused. He just dodged and surrendered.
It's been a disappointing year under Baker's watch, with no policy reviews, no apologies, and no course corrections. This proves that he wasn't trying to lead, just excuse — a tactic he tried during a recent appearance before a Senate committee.
Baker's inaction supports the misguided transgender policies promoted by the Women's Sports Foundation in 2010, which Emmert and the NCAA have simply repackaged as their own.
Transgender participation in women's sports will become an even hotter topic in 2023
Now, the person responsible for the failure that this trans-inclusion policy has inevitably led to is Charlie Baker.
NCAA swimming has added two more cases since Thomas' debacle: Roanoke College in Virginia and Ramapo College in New Jersey.
Emboldened by the protests against Thomas, Roanoke's swim team captains took it upon themselves to summon the courage of their team. They challenged the university and the NCAA to force a former Roanoke men's team swimmer, who now identifies as female, to be removed from the women's team's roster.
Meanwhile, the women at Ramapo College are reaping the same rotten fruits of the NCAA's foul policies as Paula Scanlan and her teammates at the University of Pennsylvania. As with Leah Thomas, boys on the team have broken school records in girls swimming as well. All the female swimmers who were forced to compete against Meghan Cortez-Fields, a man who identifies as transgender, are now victims of sexism in their own sport.
British researchers have just backed up claims that women's sport remains all-female. Researchers who studied the results of the New York Road Runners' “non-binary” athlete category in 21 races found that an athlete's actual gender (male or female) was the best predictor of performance.
Hawley criticizes NCAA president's 'word salad' response to transgender athlete policy
For most people, this is common sense, not rocket science. As the husband and father of a female athlete, Baker should know this all too well.
But Charlie Baker has shown no courage or ability to stand up for science or fairness. He also did not object to sexual harassment in the locker room. There he was forced to encounter male Leah Thomas, where the female swimmer was fully exposed.
Even Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, who is pushing to eliminate the women's sports category by rewriting Title IX regulations that enforce gender identity as a new standard, acknowledged that allowing Thomas to undress in the girls' locker room constituted sexual harassment. Ta. But Baker doesn't do that.
Female NCAA athletes have already lost trophies, lost their right to privacy, and are now on the brink of losing their scholarships.
Towards 2023 NCAA Volleyball Championship In the midst of this, news broke that a transgender male volleyball player from California who had been discreetly participating on the women's team had been promised a Division I scholarship. The soon-to-be-rising senior has verbally committed to the University of Washington for the 2024-25 season.
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It doesn't take much imagination to see how the recruiting wars for transgender men dominating women's sports will begin.
Giving a male-born athlete one of the 12 coveted women's scholarships adds insult to injury inflicted on female athletes. It doubles down on women's sports and has already led to devastating safety risks like career-ending concussions on the volleyball court.
These misguided transgender policies that undermine integrity and equal opportunity in women's sports are causing chaos and real consequences.
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The failure to reverse course on destructive transgender inclusion policies that have no basis in science, justice, or common sense is now under the watchful eye of NCAA President Charlie Baker, and will be his legacy squarely.
Scholarships and sponsorship deals given to men who promote themselves as female athletes should be a last resort. What is Charlie Baker going to do about it?
Click here to read more from Doreen Denny
