Senator Tommy Tuberville Fights to Protect Women's Sports
By Caroline Melear
Since its passage in 1972, the landmark Title IX legislation has allowed young women across the country to participate in sports like their male peers. Title IX states that any institution, school, or university receiving federal funds for sports programs must not discriminate based on sex and that equal funding must be provided to both male and female athletics.
However, women's sports are facing an assault from the far-Left in the United States. The Left has doubled down on radical transgender ideology, demanding that biological boys be allowed to compete against girls in the name of inclusion. Examples of this are flaring up across the country, and the Department of Education now intends to make this a permanent fixture in Title IX regulations. The result will be the end of spirited competition for female athletics and the rapid erasure of opportunity for young women.
While the Left attempts to destroy one of the most meaningful recreational spaces for young women, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is pushing back.
Alongside some Republican colleagues, the senator has reintroduced the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. The legislation would ban any federal funding for schools or universities which allow biological boys to compete with girls in sports. Senator Tuberville, affectionately referred to as “Coach,” has a personal connection to the issue. Before becoming a senator, he was the former head football coach of Auburn University. During those eleven years of his career, he was named National Coach of the Year and led the Tigers to a championship in the SEC-often regarded as the toughest division in college football. Prior, he served as a high school girls’ basketball coach, when he saw firsthand value of Title IX for preserving integrity in young women's sports.
“There weren’t a lot of young girls that were involved in sports. It was very exclusive because there weren’t that many sports. They started Title IX, and just in the few years I was in high school coaching, you saw it flourish," the senator told The Conservateur.
Columnist, Caroline Melear, sat down with Senator Tuberville to discuss the importance of safeguarding women’s sports, his time coaching Auburn’s football team, and the infiltration of wokeism in the education system.
Seeing it play out firsthand, he considers it one of the most successful pieces of legislation to ever pass Congress. Tuberville says it led to a 600 percent increase in participation in young women's sports.
“If there’s anything that’s been successful up here on Capitol Hill, any law that passed, that’s one that’s worked," he said.
As for what he sees happening to women's sports now, his stance is clear: “It’s not fair, it’s unsafe, and it’s wrong.”
When young women are forced to compete against biological young men, whose bodies vastly differ in terms of size, shape, speed, and strength, we put girls at risk in a variety of ways. Contact sports are an obvious issue for physical safety, and the gray area of policies surrounding locker rooms is sure to make young girls feel unsafe and even preyed upon. But another issue is scholarship opportunities. Universities typically have a set number for men and women, and when a biological man masquerading as a woman is at the top of the sport, he takes away a spot from a deserving woman. This is antithetical to the intended purpose of Title IX, which was meant to give women a chance to compete amongst one another in a fair environment.
The senator sees an even deeper issue beyond physical safety and scholarships.
“It’s not just about the scholarship. Even if they do go and play, what do they learn?," he said.
Gender ideology is teaching young women that there is nothing unique or inherently valuable about womanhood, and that women do not deserve their own categories or spaces. Simply calling oneself a woman is enough, according to gender orthodoxy, so why should womanhood have any special meaning or recognition?
“In this woke environment we live in, they’re pushing identity politics. They’re forcing everybody basically into one category,” the senator said.
Coach sees the gender craze as a manifestation of the moral brokenness evident all around.
“It all goes back to Running God out of our schools back in the 60s. No praying. No talking about God," he said.
The senator also witnessed the degradation in the quality of education among the kids he coached. Their reading proficiency seemed to get worse each year, he said.
“They weren’t learning anything in school. I saw the indoctrination part a long time before anybody else did. The coaches could see that. That’s one of the reasons I ran for this job," he said.
The senator believes quality education is crucial to maintaining America’s status as the greatest country in the world. But he also knows that kids need spiritual guidance from faith.
“I was the first coach in college to have a full-time team Chaplain. Twenty-five years later, almost every school had one. And it made such a difference in the kids’ lives," he said.
Senator Tuberville in his Capitol Hill office holding the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.
As for the country’s young women, who appear to be suffering, Coach knows how instrumental sports can be for personal, professional, and emotional development.
“Sports build confidence, it builds character, it builds values," he said.
The passage of the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act will help safeguard women's divisions in athletics. As for what can be done on an individual level, Coach gives his advice.
“A lot of people asked me, what can we do Coach? I said you can run for school board. Talk to your principals. Talk to your school counselors. They work for you, you don’t work for them," he said.
Caroline Melear is a columnist for The Conservateur,a resident fellow in finance, insurance, and trade at a free market think tank, and a Young Voices Contributor. She has appeared on Fox Business, CBS Miami, and The Today Show and written for the Daily Caller. You can follow her on Twitter @carolinemelear.
