A lawsuit settlement against a Vermont high school that retaliated against a brave female athlete and her father for speaking out against a biological male in the girls’ locker room has just vindicated Blake Allen’s cause and the justifiable outrage against transactivism sabotaging women’s rights. It has further exposed the illegitimacy of the Biden administration’s tone-deaf determination to rewrite Title IX in favor of men who “identify” as women.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona should back off his indefensible Title IX rules that has now been placed on hold until October.
During a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, Cardona knew he would be in the hot seat facing questions from a congressional committee examining his department’s policies and priorities. But no one expected to hear Cardona admit that forcing women athletes to undress in the locker room with biological males like University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) swimmer Lia Thomas amounts to sexual harassment.
Appearing before the House Education and Workforce Committee, Cardona knew he would be questioned on his proposed rewrite of Title IX, which requires schools to let males self-identifying as women participate on female sports teams.
In her opening statement, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-NC, called out the Biden administration’s radical Title IX agenda granting any man the right to claim “womanhood” and compete in women’s sports:
“Under your Department’s regime, self-identification is deemed sufficient for a man to be a legal ‘woman’ and therefore compete in women’s sports. And one could self-identify as a man on one day and a woman the very next day.”
A public comment period on Biden’s proposed rule forcing a “gender identity” mandate in school sports had ended less than 24 hours before Cardona’s appearance, flooding the department with opposition. The rule threatens to withhold federal funding from any school that won’t allow males identifying as women on female athletic teams.
Before the hearing, committee Republicans urged Cardona to withdraw this rogue Title IX rule which stands in direct opposition to the recently passed Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.
Freshman Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., waited her turn until the final hour of the marathon hearing to question Cardona about a related question of sexual harassment under Title IX:
Houchin: Do you believe that requiring those women to undress in front of Lia Thomas and allowing Lia Thomas to undress in front of female athletes constitutes sexual harassment, yes or no?
Cardona: I don’t believe students should, be, feel unsafe in any locker room.
Houchin: Do you believe that it constitutes sexual harassment to force women to undress in front of biological males?
Cardona: I do believe forcing, uh, forcing women to undress in front of biological males is a concern and sexual … yes.
Houchin: So, if Lia Thomas identifies as male, would requiring female swimmers to dress with him have constituted sexual harassment?…
Cardona: I think I know the line of questioning, and I’d be happy to… it’s not a yes or no question for me.
Cardona is forced to admit the obvious. It’s the only common-sense position: Yes, forcing women to share a locker room with a nude male against their will constitutes sexual harassment. But Cardona finds himself trapped in defending that position. The tentacles of transactivism ruling the Biden administration have tightened their grip to the point of suffocating common sense and common decency. All female athletes are held hostage to the ideological activism on display in Cardona’s appearance before Congress and on the pages of federal rulemaking.
Female athletes are also held hostage by National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) policies which forced female swimmers to suit up with a naked Lia Thomas in the UPenn women’s locker room and at the 2022 NCAA championships. Over a year later, the NCAA’s admission of wrongdoing, apology, and change in policy is nowhere to be found.
Ironically, while Cardona was testifying, former NCAA champion swimmer Riley Gaines, who raced against Lia Thomas, was testifying before a House Homeland Security subcommittee. She told them about how she was held hostage by leftist activists for ransom at San Francisco State University after she gave a speech recounting her experience racing against Thomas and being exposed to Thomas’ frontal nudity while suiting up in the locker room.
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This is exactly the real scenario of sexual exploitation that Houchin was smart to address with Cardona at the hearing. NCAA President Charlie Baker better be listening – the Education Secretary has alleged that forcing NCAA women swimmers to suit up with biological male Thomas in the locker room was sexual harassment. The NCAA is guilty as charged.
The NCAA has a history of throwing women under the bus, but throwing a naked male in their locker room against their consent is sexual harassment violating their rights under Title IX.
Athletics is not the only example of biological men invading college female spaces in their desire to be “women.” Kappa Kappa Gamma members at the University of Wyoming are being harassed by the sexual fantasies of a trans-identifying male pledge with unfettered access to the private floors of their sorority house.
Despite his admission, Cardona and his commander in chief continue to abandon women at the altar of “transwomen” idolatry. Americans are not fools. This isn’t a comedy sketch. Classifying drag queens as “marginalized women,” celebrating anemic Dylan Mulvaney caricatures of womanhood, and promoting males like Lia Thomas in women’s sports are producing a horror show of sex discrimination against women.
Cardona just admitted that trans-identifying males undressing in female locker rooms constitutes sexual harassment in violation of Title IX. Now he needs to act to stop the exploitation of women by abandoning his foolish Title IX rules and taking action against NCAA institutions.
