Tipsheet

New Poll: Should Men Be Barred From Competing in Women's Sports?

Katie Pavlich
Katie Pavlich  |  March 10, 2021 5:00 PM

A new Morning Consult/POLITICO poll shows most Americans do not believe men should be allowed to compete in women's sports. 

The poll asked, "As you may know, Mississippi is moving towards banning transgender athletes from participating on women’s sports teams at the state’s high schools and universities. Based on what you know, do you support or oppose banning transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams?"

In January, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that forces women's sports teams to allow men to participate if they want to keep their Department of Education funding.

Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department. If this policy were to be broadly adopted in anticipation of the regulations that are no doubt on the way, what would this mean for girls’ and women’s sports?

“Finished. Done,” Olympic track-and-field coach Linda Blade told me. “The leadership skills, all the benefits society gets from letting girls have their protected category so that competition can be fair, all the advances of women’s rights—that’s going to be diminished.” Ms. Blade noted that parents of teen girls are generally uninterested in watching their daughters demoralized by the blatant unfairness of a rigged competition.

After the order, a number of states took action to protect female athletics. In addition to Mississippi, South Dakota just passed legislation to do so.