For dignity and safety

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 4th of September.
This is WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up on The World and Everything in It, new top-down protections for women’s sports.

Earlier this summer, the U-S Olympic and Paralympic Committee, or USOPC, quietly revised its Athlete Safety Policy. The change? It now pledges to work with national governing bodies of amateur sports to comply with President Trump's executive order on men in women’s competitions.

BROWN: It’s a shift that could be good news for millions of female athletes at all levels, if the policy sticks. WORLD’s Lindsay Mast has the story.

LINDSAY MAST: Macy Petty figured out her dream pretty early in life.

PETTY: I was homeschooled in elementary school, so I would sit outside for hours learning how to overhand serve a volleyball.

She set her sights on a college scholarship and started playing club volleyball.

PETTY: I would travel all over the country every weekend. Never got to go to prom or anything like that because of my commitment.

She recalls one high-stakes tournament, where college scouts would be watching. Also there: a male playing with a female team, against female teams.

PETTY: I was really confused because the men's courts were on the other side of the convention center and they had plenty of opportunities to play over there, but still this male athlete was playing on our court.

Petty says playing against a male made her concerned for both her safety and her chance to stand out on the court.

PETTY: It jeopardized my opportunity to play in college, something that I had been dreaming of for a long time.

AUDIO: DENIED BY PETTY!!!!

Petty did go on to play in college and started speaking out about the need to protect female athletes.

She now works as a legislative analyst for Concerned Women for America. The group recently released a report that found that American male athletes have taken the top spot over females more than 1900 times, pushing the girls and women below them down in ranking. The prize money involved totals nearly half a million dollars.

That’s one reason Petty welcomes the USOPC’s new athlete safety policy.

PETTY: It does have far reaching effects.

The new policy is expected to quickly trickle down, protecting both elite athletes and those who play at lower levels. The Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act chartered the USOPC in 1978 and gave it authority over sports national governing bodies, or NGBs—think USA Swimming, USA Wrestling and more than 45 other similar organizations. They govern and set rules for their respective sports.

Petty says those leagues with nationally competitive rankings and events often serve as a pipeline to the Olympics.

PETTY: Most high school leagues, the club league that I was playing for for recruitment, they all refer to these national governing bodies for the rules of the game for eligibility standards. So you'd want your standards for eligibility to remain pretty in line.

But even as governing bodies change and clarify rules to fall in line with the new USOPC policy, it’s unclear what effect that will have. For example, USA Volleyball now says competitors must compete in the category that aligns with their birth certificate, but many states allow birth certificates to be changed. Petty says that makes enforcement difficult and doesn’t align with the order–which is based on biological sex.

MACY PETTY: USA Volleyball is not even acknowledging that sex exists. They will not use the words female or woman anywhere in their policy. They're just treating it as if this is something that some doctor is just deciding when they're born and putting it on their birth certificate. There's no way to give women the dignity and safety that they deserve if you don't acknowledge that women exist, period.

USA Fencing’s new policy does say those competing in the women’s category must be “of the female sex.” In response, Minnesota Division Fencing released a statement saying the new policy has caused pain and confusion, and that it would offer only mixed events. Eliminating a women’s category could effectively leave females in direct competition against males.

Another problem: the USOPC changes hinge on an executive order, which could change under a different administration. At least one lawsuit challenging the order is making its way through the court system.

Florida Representative Greg Steube has introduced an amendment to the Ted Stevens Act that would codify protections for female athletes. Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has also supported similar legislation in the Senate.

The movement to protect female athletes has some high-level international support.

KIRSTY COVENTRY: I want to ensure that front and foremost we protect Female category.

That’s Kirsty Coventry, the new President of the International Olympic Committee. She was clear on her stance before her election in March. Audio from Sports Insider.

COVENTRY: I do believe that everyone has the right to play sport 100% but when it comes to the Olympic Games we're not having a discussion around how transgender athletes are impacting male category only the female category. And being a former female athlete having two young girls I want to ensure that that category is protected.

Just how far those same protections for American female athletes ultimately go, remains to be seen.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast.

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