I was a four-sport varsity athlete, a girls’ volleyball and track coach, and a high school athletic director. From the time I first stepped onto a field as a young girl, I never had to question whether athletics would be part of my life. For young women today, that certainty is fading – now that biological males are allowed to compete in women’s sports.
June 23 marks the anniversary of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a landmark law that forever changed the landscape of education and athletics in America. In 2022, we celebrated 50 years of progress. And in 2025, the U.S. Department of Education officially designated June as “Title IX Month,” recognizing its profound impact on women’s opportunity.
Title IX was a bipartisan achievement, championed by Democrats and signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon. It guaranteed equal opportunities in education and athletics for women and girls. The results were nothing short of transformational.
When Title IX was enacted in 1972, just over 300,000 girls and women participated in high school and college sports combined. Fewer than 30,000 women were college athletes, and athletic scholarships for women were nearly nonexistent. In the 2024 academic year, over 233,600 women competed in NCAA athletics, making up approximately 44% of all college student-athletes. Today, over 3.4 million girls – more than 42% of high school athletes – participate in high school sports.
This progress has extended beyond athletics. In 1970, only 8% of American women held college degrees. Today, that number has climbed to nearly 40%. Title IX helped fuel that transformation by opening doors to educational and extracurricular opportunities once denied to women.
Today, after more than 50 years of hard-won gains, Title IX is at risk. A new challenge has emerged – one that threatens to undo decades of advancement for female athletes. Policies that allow biological males who identify as female to compete in women’s sports are creating an uneven playing field and displacing the very athletes Title IX was designed to protect.
Let us be clear: genders do not play sports – bodies do. Physiological differences between males and females, such as larger lung capacity, greater muscle mass, bone density, and oxygen efficiency give male athletes inherent advantages in almost every sport. That is not bias. That is biology.
Today, male athletes identifying as female are winning championships, breaking records, earning women’s scholarships, and even gaining access to women’s locker rooms. This is not what Title IX was meant to achieve.
Title IX was created to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunity, not to introduce unfair competition into their divisions. Recognizing biological reality is not discriminatory; it is the foundation of fairness in sports. We can be compassionate toward all individuals while still standing firm in defense of women’s athletic opportunity.
We cannot afford to be silent. Now is the time to act:
- Contact your federal legislators and urge them to support laws that uphold the original intent of Title IX - protecting women’s sports based on biological sex.
- Engage your state legislators and encourage them to pass commonsense protections for girls and women in athletics.
- Educate your community about the real and present threats to female sports and speak truth with both grace and conviction.
Let us stand strong. Let us stand for truth. Let us stand with female athletes.
Nickie McCarty is the State Director for Concerned Women for America (CWA) of New Mexico on behalf of CWA Legislative Action Committee. She is also a former educator and athletic director.
