When Megan Rapinoe recently went on “The View,” she went on a tirade about trans-identifying athletes supposedly being excluded from women’s sports. Namely, she posed a question regarding men in women’s sports that the media has since buzzed about: “Unsafe from who?” I immediately had an answer: me.
In 2022, I was struck in the head by a volleyball spiked by a male athlete competing on the opposing girls’ team. The impact knocked me unconscious and caused a traumatic brain injury that ended my athletic career — and still affects me today.
I’ve spent my early 20s traveling across the country, speaking up for women’s sports. Along the way, I’ve been accused of “co-opting” feminist language and have dealt with unrelenting hatred and even comedy skits about me.
That’s why I was grateful to see WNBA player Sophie Cunningham refuse to back down when she defended women’s sports, calling it a “common-sense” position and even standing squarely planted on her original stance, saying, “I said what I said.”
Another accusation hurled recently at our efforts argues that women like me have been distracted from the “real” issues facing female athletes. According to Ms. Magazine, we should be talking about “fewer opportunities, unequal funding and facilities access, and hundreds of unresolved discrimination complaints” from female athletes. That position misses the point entirely. I can unequivocally say that no amount of additional funding, nor an upgraded facility, would have prevented my volleyball injury.
The suggestion that advocates like me don’t care about funding or participation because we also defend fairness creates a false choice. Women are capable of caring about more than one issue at a time.
We can fight for better resources while also insisting that girls deserve a level playing field. I would even argue that those goals depend on each other.
If roster spots, conference championships, podium finishes, scholarships, and records can all be taken by male athletes competing in the women’s division, then equal funding alone cannot create equal opportunities.
Female athletes have fought for decades to secure equal opportunities under Title IX — and yes, the ups and downs of funding and participation do matter. Participation in women’s sports has gone from 3.7% to 40% since 1976. But equal opportunity based on sex means next to nothing if girls are expected to compete in a category that is no longer reserved for them.
The fact of the matter is that Title IX wasn’t created to build nicer locker rooms or buy better uniforms. It was enacted because lawmakers acknowledged biological reality: women, who are physically different from men, deserved a category for themselves to promote safe, equal, and fair educational opportunities (sports included). Protecting that category is Title IX’s purpose.
The only thing that would have protected me was preserving the girls’ category for girls only. Independent Women’s “Our Bodies, Our Sports” and “Her Game. Her Legacy.” initiatives have never been about degrading people struggling with gender dysphoria — it’s been about acknowledging biological differences between males and females for everyone’s safety and equal opportunity.
Male puberty produces measurable advantages in strength, speed, endurance, and power. That reality should not be ignored, especially if we are asking females to go up against them in contact sports. Moreover, sports are inherently zero-sum, so even just one man on a women’s team means a woman has lost a roster spot and an opportunity to compete.
The Supreme Court just affirmed this concept, recognizing “woman” as it was meant in the 1970s: as biologically female. States have legitimate reasons to separate athletic competition based on biological sex.
Yet radical advocates (and their media allies, like Ms. Magazine and Megan Rapinoe) continue to respond with inflammatory claims that protecting women’s sports will somehow lead to “genital inspections” of girls. That rhetoric may make the headlines, but there is no factual basis to their claims.
No one has ordered invasive inspections of high-school or collegiate athletes. Schools have operated sex-separated athletics based on biological differences for decades without requiring such measures. Athletic eligibility has long been determined through ordinary school records and administrative processes.
The scare tactics are meant to distract from the real conversation.
I don’t want better facilities and shiny, bright new equipment if I have to sacrifice my safety. I don’t want more scholarships for “women” if female athletes are no longer able to qualify for them alongside their male competitors.
I’m still here fighting because what happened to me shouldn’t happen to anyone else — ever. I’ve spoken with women who’ve lost titles, podium spots, and hometown records because of this issue — and none of them were asking for special treatment. All we’ve been asking for is exactly what Title IX promised over 50 years ago: a fair chance to compete.
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Payton McNabb is a sports ambassador for Independent Women and former three-sport high school athlete who turned tragedy into triumph after a traumatic brain injury ended her athletic future.
