Girls Sports

Georgia Governor Signs Law Protecting Girls Sports and Privacy in Schools

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill into state law Monday protecting girls sports and private spaces.

The Riley Gaines Act of 2025 (S.B. 1) clarifies the legal definition of sex to mean “a student’s biological sex based exclusively on the student’s reproductive biology at birth.”

Using this definition of “sex,” the act prohibits boys from joining girls interscholastic sports teams or using girls bathrooms, locker rooms and overnight sleeping quarters.

“As the parents of three daughters, Marty and I know just how important it is to keep our children safe and to give them the best possible start in life,” Governor Kemp wrote in a press release Monday.

He continued,

Girls should not have to share a playing field, a restroom, or a locker room with boys and vice versa, and the commonsense legislation I signed today is about what is fair and safe for our children.

The Senate first passed S.B. 1 in February with a comfortable, but far from unanimous, 35-17 vote. The House approved the bill in a 110-64 vote on March 31 — this year’s designated “Transgender Day of Remembrance.”

Riley Gaines, a passionate advocate for women’s rights and the bills namesake, released a statement lauding Georgia lawmakers for protecting women and girls.

Three years after I, and dozens of other D1 female athletes, were forced to compete against a man in a Georgia pool, the Riley Gaines Act of 2025 is now law.
It’s an honor of our lifetime to know our stories help shed light on the grave problem of rampant gender ideology that means women are victims of government-facilitated sex discrimination.

Gaines’ statement references her infamous experience swimming against — and sharing a locker room with — Lia, formerly Will, Thomas. The 6-foot-1 man spent three years competing on the University of Pennsylvania’s men’s swim team before joining the women’s team as a “trans” identified woman.

When Gaines miraculously tied with Thomas in a critical race, officials gave him the trophy for “photo purposes.”

Georgia’s ratification of the Riley Gaines Act makes it one of more than 25 states to protect girls rights in schools and interscholastic activities.

Last week, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation protecting women of all ages by clarifying the meaning of “sex” in Arkansas law and preventing men from entering women’s restrooms, changing rooms and sleeping quarters in shelters, correctional facilities or public buildings.

These recent victories reflect a growing global consensus that men pretending to be women do not qualify for women’s legal protections. Unfortunately, state congressional votes on Georgia’s bill suggest protecting women’s rights and spaces is not yet a broad, bipartisan issue.

The Daily Citizen applauds Governor Kemp and Georgia legislators for protecting girls in schools. Please pray that bipartisan support for laws like this will continue to grow.

Additional Articles and Resources

Arkansas Governor Signs Bill Protecting Women’s Privacy and Spaces

Montana Governor Signs Bills protecting Women’s Privacy, Sports

West Virginia Governor Signs ‘Riley Gaines Act’ Protecting Women’s Private Spaces

NYT Poll Finds Almost 80% of Americans Oppose Men in Women’s Sports

Transgender Resources

Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion

Mississippi, South Dakota Governors Sign Bills Protecting Women’s Spaces, Privacy

Attorney General Pam Bondi Sues Maine for Title IX Violations

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a civil lawsuit against Maine’s Department of Education, charging the state with “discriminating against women by failing to protect women in women’s sports.”

In a news briefing, Bondi had some strong words about the Maine Department of Education for violating Title IX, part of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in education.

The Attorney General stated,

Today, the Department of Justice is announcing a civil lawsuit against the Maine Department of Education. The state of Maine is discriminating against women by failing to protect women in women’s sports.

Pretty basic stuff. This is a violation of Title IX. The Department of Justice will not sit by when women are discriminated against in sports. This is about sports.

This is also about these young women’s personal safety.

Bondi introduced several female athletes at the news briefing, “Fencer Zoe Hutchison, a Maine athlete. Cassidy Carlisle, a Maine athlete and my dear friend – you all know Riley Gaines, who has been a champion on this issue for women.”  

The announcement came after the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights investigated the Maine Department of Education for allowing males to compete in girls and women’s sports.

Also present were Secretary of Education Linda McMahon; Linnea Saltz, a track athlete and advocate for women’s sports; Stephanie Turner, who received a year-long suspension from fencing after refusing to compete against a male athlete; and  Representative Laurel Libby who is suing the Maine State House after it barred her from speaking or voting – all because she spoke out against a male athlete who won the state girls pole vaulting championship. 

The DOE found the state’s education department, along with the Maine Principal’s Association and Greely High School, had discriminated against female athletes, violating Title IX prohibitions.

The U.S. education department proposed actions that the Maine Department of Education could take to repair the damage, such as directing public schools to follow Title IX or risk losing funding, acknowledging there are only two sexes, segregating bathrooms and locker rooms based on sex, and stopping boys from competing in girls sports.

Maine refused to comply, so the DOE referred the matter to the Department of Justice.

In February, Governor Janet Mills doubled down on the state’s discrimination against girls and women.

When asked whether her state would follow President Donald Trump’s executive order protecting girls and women’s sports, the governor replied the state was “complying with state and federal laws.”

President Trump disagreed, responding, “We are the federal law. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.” 

Mills then replied that she would see Trump in court.

So she’s getting her wish.

Following the press conference, Education Secretary McMahon clarified for CNN’s Kasie Hunt exactly why males don’t belong in female sports,

Title IX was established to protect women, to allow them to compete in sports on a level playing field. What has happened now with transgenders, whether it‘s one or two, 22 dozen, or 100 … when you start with one, that deprives females – from getting a slot for a scholarship or a slot on the team – or getting beaten out in the competition simply because they‘re competing against a male.

She added, “It is just totally unfair, and it’s against the law. It is absolutely against federal law.”

McMahon told Hunt about the pain that girl athletes felt when, after years of pain, effort, training and practice, they lost to a male athlete. She reiterated that Title IX is a federal law that is being violated – not just a presidential executive order.

Then she explained basic biology to the CNN host, who seemed more concerned about the sexually confused males than the girls harmed by their actions,

There are two sexes. There‘s male and female. So transgender doesn‘t have a play in this. You’re born a boy, you‘re a boy. You‘re born a girl, you‘re a girl.

So even with puberty blocking hormones, etc., males are still stronger. Their structure is different. They can perform very differently in competition. We have to respect and understand that and give women the rights that they have under this title nine.

It’s unclear exactly why leftist politicians and media hosts have subscribed to gender ideology – a dogma that sexualizes and confuses girls and boys, harming them and their families.

Thankfully, there is a growing pushback against the incoherent, illogical gender theory which asserts that people can change into the opposite sex, there are an infinitude of “genders,” and bodily sex can be separated from “gender identity.”

Bondi stated strongly that she will continue to fight for girls and women, and she applauded the young women and parents who are battling injustice.

Related Articles and Resources

CNN Demonstrates Logical Incoherence in Contemporary Gender Theory

Department of Education Launches Multiple Investigations Into Title IX Violations

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Five Terrible, No-Good, Fatal Flaws of Gender Theory

Maine Schools Violated Title IX, Must Apologize, Feds Say

On 50th Anniversary of Title IX, Groups Fight to Protect Women’s Sports

Pam Bondi Pledges to End ‘Partisan Weaponization’ of Department of Justice

Poll Finds Majority of Americans Want Transgender Athletes to Play on Team of Birth Sex

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

What is “Gender Identity”?

UK Court Demonstrates It Knows What a Woman Is, Clarifying British Law

The newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court infamously could not answer what a woman is, but the United Kingdon’s highest court declared today that it is very clear on the matter. The British Supreme Court stated, “The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.”

The defining statement in the U.K. court’s decision appears on page 3, stating,

The central question on this appeal is whether the EA 2010 treats a trans woman with a GRC [gender recognition certificate] as a woman for all purposes within the scope of its provisions, or when that Act speaks of a “woman” and “sex” it is referring to a biological woman and biological sex [emphasis added].

Members of the court all landed on the biological definition, rejecting the new elastic definition used by gender ideology.

This is a landmark decision for gender-realists who root their view of what it means to be human as male or female in objective biological reality. Politico explains, “The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the provision of single-sex spaces and other gender-specific public services across Scotland, England and Wales.”

The court explained, “The principal question which the court addresses on this appeal is the meaning of the words which Parliament has used in the EA 2010 in legislating to protect women and members of the trans community against discrimination.”

They further explain, saying, “Our task is to see if those words [to denote woman] can bear a coherent and predictable meaning” within British law.

This consequential decision resulted from a lengthy and detailed challenge from three bold Scottish women working with the organization For Women Scotland which defines itself as “a group of women from across Scotland working to protect and strengthen women and children’s rights.”

J.K. Rowling, a fearless defender of common sense for what a woman is, posted the following celebration of the decision, saying she is “so proud to know you” referring to the “three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women” who fought for this landmark decision.

One anonymous commenter to Rowling’s post summed up the consequences of this decision as well as anyone,

When Parliament fled, when media lied, when cowards hid behind slogans, three Scottish women stood their ground. And they won.

This wasn’t just a legal victory. It was a cultural exorcism. The spell is broken: a woman is an adult human female. Full stop.

Rowling’s right to be proud. The rest of the political class should be ashamed it ever came to this.

A cultural exorcism indeed. Now, if only other legal bodies across the globe would follow this common sense reasoning.

Related Articles and Resources

Advanced Stanford University Research Further Documents Fact of Male-Female Brain

What Are Male and Female in God’s Story?

Why Focus on the Family Cares About the Gender Issue?

Why Christians Can’t Avoid the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue

Yes, Sexuality and Gender Are Undeniable Gospel Issues

How the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue Attacks the Family

Even Hard-Boiled Evolutionists are Standing Strong Against Gender Madness

Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion

USA Fencing Explicitly Prioritizes Men’s Feelings Over Women’s Safety and Athletic Achievement

USA Fencing (USAF) disqualified Stephanie Turner from a fencing tournament last month after she refused to compete against a male athlete.

Her sacrifice has blown the lid off USAF policies prioritizing transgender-identified men’s feelings over biological women’s safety and achievement.

Stephanie Turner spent time and money training for a regional USAF tournament in March, only to learn Redmond Sullivan, a man, would also be competing.

“As a woman fencing in a women’s tournaments, I do not believe men should fence in my category,” Turner told ABC News yesterday. She continued:

I was not aware Mr. Sullivan was registered until the night before the tournament. I prayed about it and decided if Mr. Sullivan and I were to fence face-to-face, then I would peaceably protest by taking a knee.

Turner followed through, earning a black card (disqualification) for her trouble.

When the story gained national attention this week, Turner told ABC simply:

I want to thank God for trusting me with this mission to fight for female-exclusive sports and putting me in an effective place to protest.

What an admirable, godly response to such injustice. And trust me — “unjust” is the kindest word I can use to describe USAF’s actions.

The organization told news outlets Turner’s disqualification was nothing personal. Fencers that refuse to face “eligible opponents” must be disqualified, it told ABC.

But Sullivan is only an “eligible opponent” in the women’s category because of USAF’s 2023 policy allowing athletes to “participate in USA Fencing sanctioned events in a manner consistent with their gender identity/expression.”

The policy’s introduction reads, in part:

USA Fencing is committed to ensuring athletes have the opportunity to participate in USA Fencing sanctioned events on a fair, inclusive and safe basis without discrimination.
We recognize not all individuals’ gender identities are binary, and a gender binary default for participation could potentially cause harm — leaving some individuals to feel excluded and unsafe.

Far be it from USAF to make anyone feel “excluded or unsafe” — oh, except for women.

Predictably, USAF’s “Transgender and Nonbinary Policy” triggered a substantial increase of male athletes competing in women’s fencing competitions. Fox News reports:

By September 2023, four biological male fencers, who previously competed in the men’s category, achieved USA Fencing podium finishes in the women’s category.

One of these competitors was Redmond Sullivan.

USAF lauded the influx of trans competitors in a press release on the 2023-2024 fencing season’s “impact.” Under “Expanded Representation,” the release reads:

Year-over-year data show an upward trend in membership, with more women, and more non-binary athletes, trying fencing through local clubs and developmental programs.

By “women,” of course, USAF also means “men who identify as women.”

Turner is not the only member of the fencing enraged over USAF’s mistreatment of women. A non-profit called the Fair Fencing Organization (FFO) has written two open letters to USAF, one in December and one in February, asking it to reconsider its Transgender and Nonbinary Policy.

“It is disappointing that USA Fencing has intentionally been confusing … who should fence in what category with the nonexistent issue that [“transgender” fencers] should be allowed to fence,” FFO wrote in its most recent letter.

“It was never a question that all cisgender and transgender fencers should be allowed to fence, in the category of their birth sex.”

USAF’s board members voted 8-3 against revising or changing the contested policy in December. It’s unlikely this latest uproar will make any difference.

Consider this August 2023 blogpost from the board’s director at-large, Damien Lehfeldt.

“Before you dive in, it’s best to call out my beliefs up front before you waste your time reading this and find yourself throwing up your hands in a tizzy,” Lehfeldt writes, continuing:

  • Transgender women are women and gender is not sex.
  • Transgender fencers deserve the right to compete with the gender they identify with, and those of adult age should comply with the competition guidelines and regulations outlined by USA Fencing and the IOC—even if the science of those IOC guidelines might be imperfect.
  • A separate division denies them their truth to compete as their authentic selves and is antithetical to USA Fencing’s Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) vision.
  • There is a possibility that transgender women have a physical advantage over their cisgender opponents after transitioning. There is also a possibility they do not. In Fencing, there is no data to support either viewpoint.
  • Giving athletes a sense of belonging a will to live is more powerful than medals and competitive glory.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll touch only on Lehfeldt’s last point, where he explicitly states that the feelings of transgender-identified men are more important than women’s athletic success.

His descriptions are particularly telling. The men’s feelings, Lehfeldt implies, are so important that their “will to live” will desert them if they cannot compete against women. He trivializes women’s athletic ambitions, in comparison, minimizing them to the mere collection of medals or the vain pursuit of “glory.”

Taken together, Lehfeldt comments not only erase women as a biological category, but suggest they are selfish to ask transgender-identified men to compete in a separate category.

As a woman, and a former competitive athlete, I feel qualified to say — what a joke.

If Lehfeldt’s beliefs are representative of other USAF board members, than Stephanie Turner and her compatriots are facing down a proverbial goliath.

Happily, our God is in the business of toppling giants. Please pray for His intervention on behalf of female athletes in USAF.

Additional Articles and Resources

Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivized to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them

Girls Just Wanna Have Privacy: Mom Files Complain About Male in Girl’s Locker Room

Maine School Violated Title IX, Must Apologize, Feds Say

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces            

Yet Another man Steals Women’s Trophies

Olympic Women’s Boxing Champ is Officially a Man

San Jose Coach Suspended for Filing Discrimination Complaint Against Transgender Player

Victory for Girls Sports: Court Halts DOE Redefinition of Sex

Shoving Girls Off the Podium: More Male Athletes Participating in Girls Sports

Olympic Privilege? Officials Protect Women’s Sports — But Only at the Highest Level

Male and Female Biology Matters

New Study: Testosterone Blockers and Female Hormones Don’t Erase Male-Female Athletic Differences

Fairfax County High School: ‘A Is for Abortion’ – A Cautionary Tale for Parents

A high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, celebrated Women’s History Month with a hallway decorated by “school administrators and teachers … with a special, leftist rendition of the alphabet” that included the phrase, “A is for Abortion,” The Daily Signal reported.

The incident at West Springfield High School highlights the need for parental involvement in their children’s education – not just in Northern Virginia, but across the country.

Parents are responsible for their children’s education, and they must be engaged in order to counteract and protect children from indoctrination in woke ideologies.

The “ABCs to ME” display at West Springfield also included uplifting sayings for students like “Q is for Queer,” “M is for Mansplain” and “F is for Femicide,”

That last sign directly contradicts the “A is for Abortion” poster, given that more than 63 million infants have been killed in the U.S. since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, and more than half of these are female.

Millions of preborn girls aborted – that is real femicide.

That’s not even mentioning the spiritual, physical, mental and emotional harms to women who abort their preborn children.

Each letter of the alphabet in the display included two signs with different words or phrases representing each letter. So, for example, another A sign said, “A is for Athletes,” showing pictures of female athletes.

Without any apparent awareness of the irony, a different sign said, “T is for Trans Women.” So the school applauds female athletes – but also the boys who claim to be women who rob real teen girls of athletic opportunities, victories and scholarships, as well as assaulting their safety and privacy in girls restrooms, showers and locker rooms.

Other objectionable posters had slogans like “P is for Patriarchy,” “P is for Persecution,” “O is for Objectification” and “Z is for male gaZe.” In addition to playing fast and loose with the alphabet, the sloganeering paints all men as the enemy.

What a treat it must’ve been for high school boys to walk down the school hallway and seen posters denigrating them. The educators who posted the sign might as well have had pictures of teen boys with a sign that said, “E is for Enemy.”

The alphabet portrays a huge problem with “progressive” ideology – it separates humans into identity groups and pits them against each other. Why not simply celebrate the accomplishments of women during Women’s History Month, instead of attacking boys and men?

The dogmatic, simplistic little sayings also spread confusion. Are women victors – “L is for Limitless,” “O is for Olympian” and “T is for Triumph,” or are they victims – “G is for Gaslight” and “P is for Persecution”?

This is the latest in a list of incidents where the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) District has implemented policies that sexualize, confuse and harm children, as the Daily Citizen has previously reported:

  • In 2021, Stacy Langton, a mother of six, with the two oldest attending Fairfax High School. She made headlines for reading aloud portions of sexually explicit books from the school library at a school board meeting. The books, including Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison and Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe, include explicit illustrations of oral sex and masturbation, as well as graphic descriptions of sex between men and children. The school banned her from entering the library.
  • That same year, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) announced it was removing the two books from school libraries. At the time, Lawn Boy was available in 11 FCPS high schools, while Gender Queer was available at 7 schools. But after reviewing the books, the district placed the sexually explicit materials back on school library shelves.
  • In March 2024, as part of its celebration of “Neurodiversity Affirmation Week,” district staff designed posters that were “were ‘hung in each of our schools as a constant reminder of the uniqueness of human thought,’” reported Parents Defending Education, a parental rights advocacy group. “Neurodiversity” is not a medical term, but it is used by activists to portray brain functioning issues as “normal variations.” It usually encompasses issues like autism, dyslexia and obsessive compulsive disorder. “However,” the group added, “the district’s poster that students saw also attempts to extend the meaning of neurodiversity to include ‘gender,’ ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘ethnicity,’ ‘race,’ and ‘religion/spirituality.’”
  • FCPS chose to ignore parents opposition to teaching children about “gender identity” in its Family Live Education program. More than 80% of parents responded to a district survey saying they did not support this teaching. But as one parent said, when the district wants to do something, ““they appoint a committee filled with people with viewpoints to get the outcome they want, ask for community feedback, then ignore and manipulate the feedback.”

It’s clear that Fairfax schools have embraced radical, sexualized ideology. Again, this spotlights the great need for parents to be involved in their local schools.

The woke alphabet posters also exemplify why educational freedom for all students is desperately needed in every state. Children should be able to attend schools that support their family’s values and avoid schools that inculcate them into harmful, false ideologies.

Related Articles and Resources

Focus on the Family’s free parenting resource Equipping Parents for Back to School explains issues like educational freedom, parental rights in education, critical race theory, sexual education, and religious freedom and free speech in schools. It’s a terrific resource for parents who want to advocate for their children and guide them toward academic success.

Department of Education Blew $1 Billion on DEI – Here’s Why It Matters

Department of Education: Schools Embracing DEI Will Lose Funding

Fairfax County Puts Obscene Books Back in School Libraries

Fairfax School Board Votes to Suspend Students for ‘Maliciously Misgendering’ Other Students

Indoctrination Station: New York State Education Department Pushes Critical Theory on Students

Parents Support Core Subjects, Keeping Males out of Female Sports

Teachers are Invaluable, But They Aren’t Our Children’s Parents

Trump Ends Radical Indoctrination, Promotes Education Freedom

Virginia School District Ignore Parents Opposition, Implements ‘Gender Identity’ Lessons

Image from Shutterstock.