U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Quietly Updates Policy to Bar Males from Women's Competition

The policy that includes the new wording that's making headlines is here:

https://assets.contentstack.io/v3/assets/blt9e58afd92a18a0fc/bltf456568858cc9c12/USOPC_Athlete_Safety_Policy.pdf

The new wording appears on page 5 in the middle of the page at the end of Section 3. Jurisdiction:

3.3 Additional Requirement

The USOPC is committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport. The USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities, e.g., IOC, IPC, NGBs, to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act, 36 U.S.C § 22501, et. seq.

Dims in tears!!!

update: total meltdown

A 90/10 issue that 99% of House Dems voted against…I voted 3rd party last November but this doesn’t make me want to vote for them, at all

Democrat. Athletic administrator. Coach. Not sad about this at all. In fact, it was long overdue and I celebrate it.

Don’t confuse elected whores on either side of the aisle with those that they represent. Yes, Dems vote for some truly stupid stuff. Republicans shaft the rural people that support them to curry favor with their President. We all get the government that we deserve.

Common sense prevails! Virtue signalers go home devastated

I’m a democrat too, and I applaud this decision! Men with gender dysphoria should not be permitted to compete in the women’s category. Competitive sports have no duty of care to provide affirming care for those with mental/emotional health issues!

Allison Wade at Fast Women is complaining about this on her Instagram story:

https://www.instagram.com/stories/fastwomen/3682981954400593495/

and also expressing frustration with people not speaking out against it:

https://www.instagram.com/stories/fastwomen/3683046302288535409/

I think Allison puts out an informative newsletter, but have never understood her inclusion and celebration of trans women's results in Fast Women, which - as most people fairly realize - come at the expense of women. Maybe the reason nobody is speaking out against this policy is that most people - even liberal Democrats such as myself - support it. And anyone who speaks out in support of this policy, or against trans participation, gets shouted down and accused of being a "transphobe" and worse.

Just to be clear: the USOPC policy bars all male athletes across the board from women's sports in the US. Not just "men with gender dysphoria."

Whilst the USOPC does not have control over school sports in the USA, the new policy is also expected to have a direct or indirect effect on many youth sports done outside of schools. So boys will likely end up being barred from the girls' category in many club and community sports too.

The USPOC policy requires all national governing bodies of sports in the United States to adopt their own bans.

Grassroots clubs may now also have to update their policies to remain part of the NGBs.

If the USOPC [or any national governing bodies ] fail to enforce or comply with its stated policy, a provision in the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act allows Congress to dissolve the USOPC board of directors and decertify national governing bodies.

A list of the 59 different national sports governing bodies that USPOC has a hand in actively administering is here:

usopc.org

Member Organizations

bers must be actively engaged in sport administration for the Olympic, Paralympic or Pan/ParaPan American Games.

Open link

To give an idea of the wide reach and trickle-down effect the new USPOC policy is going to have on girls' sports as well as women's sports in the USA: most of the 59 different national sports governing bodies that are members of the USPOC, and which the USPOC oversees, are themselves large umbrella associations with dozens or hundreds of state, regional and local member organizations. Collectively, they operate competitive sports programs outside of school contexts that millions of children, adolescents and adults in the US participate in. So lots of girls' tems will be affected.

For example, US Volleyball says:

More than 300,000 girls, ages 11-18, are members of USA Volleyball, and most of them play club volleyball outside of their high school season.

US Softball has more than 120,000 teams across the USA with more than one million players. Many of the softball teams are for minor-age girls.

US Soccer has 114 different member organizations across the 50 states. Many of them run club and community soccer progams for girls.

This means lots of girls' club and community sports teams will be able to bar boys from joining - even in states like California, Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut where state lawmakers, education authorities, and school sports federations insist that girls' school sports must be open to boys.

She is just out of touch with 90% of what people believe on this issue.

We had all been gaslit for too long but keeping males out of female sport isn't even controversial and never should have been. You can have compassion for transgender people and understand males have an advantage in female sport.

When Martina Navratilova, Donald Trump, J.K. Rowling, Caitlyn Jenner, Bill Maher, Joe Rogan, Seb Coe, and Elon Musk are on the same side of an issue it's not controversial.

Martina Navratilova especially. She's a woman who has fought her whole career to elevate women's sports to the level as men's sports, while overcoming multiple strikes against her in the eyes of the public: "out" lesbian, from an evil Eastern-bloc communist country, regularly beat America's tennis sweetheart Chris Evert. If there's anyone who knows something about women's sports and what is fair, it is Martina Navratilova.

Yeah, when the Women's Sports Foundation, National Organization for Women, Women's National Law Center, and Ms. Foundation are on the same sides of the issue, it's not controversial... oh, wait! They are all regressive, misogynistic organizations, right?

You have only two women on your list and one of them is a noted transphobic bigot, but they must represent the consensus of general public.

And stop pretending to care about "compassion for transgender people." You have turned this message board into a safe space for transphobes where they can spew their unfettered hatred and dehumanize trans people.

BJK has never done anything to elevate the women's sports and never experienced any bigotry as an open lesbian because she was born and brought up in the US, right?

The difference between the two is that Martina thinks of sports only from the elite competition perspective (like most posters on this board), while BJK looks at it from the opposite end. She is more concerned about an eight year old who is not allowed to play youth soccer with her friends.

Of course, sports, especially school sponsored sports, exist for the sole purpose of sorting out winners and losers, according to this message board. So BJK must be 100% wrong.

Your point is valid, but also a strawman. Billie Jean King has done tremendous work in advancing women in sport. He could have included her, but also her omission is probably not what you are inferring. Maybe he just (in the moment) think of her.

No. He could not have included BJK, because she and Martina have the exact opposite opinion on this. He also could not have included Megan Rapinoe, Candace Parker, Alex Morgan, Napheesa Collier and many other top athletes because they all disagree with Martina.

And here is a note to Martina and other LGB people. You are the next target. They are already trying to erase bisexual people.

yahoo.com

After Erasing 'Trans' References Under Trump, Stonewall Website Deletes Another Part Of LGBTQ

@YahooNews

The National Park Service restored at least one mention following backlash about the quiet change.

Open link

And how soon will they start targeting L and then G?

Posting anon because I work in the USOPC world.

This decision is causing quite the stir. My opinion is that the policy change is the correct one, but I am not a fan of the way it was done. I also do not think the Trump folks really did a lot of reasoning on this and that the impetus is more out of being anti-trans than a reasoned argument on why.

It also presents a lot of issues such as what is a NGB (or sports administrators) to do to verify a participant is a female? In many states (I looked it is all but 6 that have absolute bans) birth certificates can be changed (although that process likely is challenging and time consuming so it might not happen often). Same thing for drivers licenses as some states allow for a person to put the gender they identify with as "sex". So if a person shows up at a USATF event with a birth certificate and DL that says "female", what is an official to do?

Does the 10 year old wanting to play whatever sport in the female division need a "sport passport" based on a cheek swab (and that cannot be the final determinant but only a screening tool---that gets into a whole other level of complication)?

Again, an issue is implementation but Trump does not care about that. He only cares about the headline.

My error really. For some reason I thought BJK was on the side of Martina. Brain cramp on my part.

All reasonable posts until this joker comes along. "Unfettered hatred", "dehumanize"? What complete and utter drivel. Nobody sane could equate the posts so far, and what 90% or whatever of people believe, with those remarks.

I am not talking about the posts on this thread, but posts on other threads that rojo started in order to trigger transphobes and drive page view counts. (And I suspect all the haters will eventually find this thread and post their venoms here.)

And he has confessed he has personal grudge because he was cancelled by Ivy League and suffered from some financial loss.