A letter from the Tennessee House Republican Caucus to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was published Tuesday, showing the House Republicans urged the NCAA to drop its rules allowing biological males who identify as transgender females to compete in women’s sports during its ongoing annual convention in Nashville.
Signed by every Republican in the State House, the letter was written by State Representative Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville) and sent on January 9, and specifically pressed the NCAA to reverse its 2010 rule change that lawmakers wrote allowed, “men who decide to be women” to “displace real women in competitive sports,” at colleges throughout the country.
“The biological fact that makes have an undeniable advantage over females in athletics is not up for debate,” Garrett (pictured above) wrote. “Science and common sense prove that men are generally taller with broader shoulders, more muscle mass, greater strength, and enhanced lung capacities than their female counterparts.”
Garrett also invoked the case of Riley Gaines, the former college athlete who was required to compete against the biologically male swimmer Lia Thomas, who last year lost a legal challenge seeking the right to compete after World Aquatics adopted a policy that would prevent the transgender woman from competing with women.
The lawmaker wrote, “When Riley testified before U.S. House and Senate committees about her experience being forced to compete against a male, she said, “I felt betrayed; I felt belittled. I felt reduced to a photo-op… But my feelings didn’t matter. What mattered to the NCAA were the feelings of a biological male,’” and said the NCAA “will destroy the integrity of women’s sports” unless it acts.
Gaines is currently suing the NCAA over its transgender policy, having filed the lawsuit last year.
“We implore NCAA leaders to take bold action to protect women’s sports during its annual convention in Nashville this month,” wrote Garrett. “Ensuring men and women have true gender-specific sports provides a competitive, safe and encouraging environment that promotes success.”
He continued, “By keeping men out of women’s sports, the NCAA can provide this assurance and follow through on its promise to ‘protect young athletes.’”
Gaines headlined a protest against the NCAA’s convention in Phoenix, when she said allowing biological men to compete alongside women erases women.
She told a crowd that such policies are “not progressive,” but “regressive,” by forcing women “back in time at least half a century. … Title 9 was enacted and enforced to protect women and girls, not men who want to be like us.”
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to pappert.tom@proton.me.
Photo “State Rep. Johnny Garrett” by State Rep. Johnny Garrett and “NCAA” by NCAA.