‘Respect our dignity’: Female athletes take aim at Biden admin over looming Title IX changes

(Daily Caller News Foundation) – A coalition of female athletes held a rally in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to protest the Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX rules that added protections based on gender ideology and sexual orientation.

The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) held a rally in Washington, D.C., as a part of Our Bodies, Our Sports’ “Take Back Title IX Summer 2024 Bus Tour.” The rally was one stop on the group’s month-long tour across the nation aimed to raise awareness about the threat the administration’s new rules have on women’s sports, according to Our Bodies, Our Sports.

Our Bodies, Our Sports also published a letter addressing the Biden administration and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s Title IX rewrite, demanding to protect women’s sports. The letter states the importance of privacy and safety in female sports.

The Biden administration’s Title IX rule change was intended to expand protections to include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” The rule change was blocked in several Republican states earlier recently, and the administration has since appealed the rulings.

Macy Petty, a former collegiate volleyball player and Concerned Women for America ambassador, is one of the women on tour advocating for the protection of women’s sports.

“They should be working on protecting fairness. For female athletes, it’s a really simple thing we’re asking for. Just respect our dignity. But instead, they’re coming and attacking our dignity and who we are as human beings. And they’re putting us in jeopardy because of it. We’ve seen girls who have lost out on scholarship opportunities, who have been severely injured. And that’s all at the hands of the Biden administration and their reckless Title IX rule,” Petty told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The group of women on the bus tour includes Olympians, NCAA athletes, high school athletes, coaches and prominent women’s advocates like Riley Gaines, Martina Navratilova and Tulsi Gabbard. 

Payton McNabb, a former high school volleyball player, member of the bus tour and IWF ambassador was partially paralyzed after severe injuries to her head and neck as a result of a spike from a male athlete who identified as transgender.

“Women are under attack … So this tour is really just to get the word out and get people involved and just educate on what’s going on. A lot of people don’t even realize that it’s happening, and it is real,” McNabb told the DCNF.

“I would not be who I am without Title IX … it propelled me for my coaching role and prepared me in my recruiting role,” IWF marketing director Adriana McLamb told the DCNF.

McLamb is a former NCAA Division I volleyball player and serves as a marketing director, recruiting coordinator and volleyball coach for high-level young females hoping to play in college.

“We were able to send almost 200,000 letters to the NCAA Board of Governors before they met in April, asking them to change not just the federal level, but actually at the NCAA level, we actively have multiple campaigns that are targeting different governing bodies of sport change, and we’re using our voices everywhere we can,” said McLamb.

The Education Department did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.