The Daily Signal - How Penny Nance Is Fighting to Keep Men Out Women's Sports

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Transgender swimmer Lia Thompson is making waves. The biological male swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania is dominating his female counterparts in the pool. Thompson's races have garnered a massive amount of media attention, and an increasing number of Americans are questioning how it's fair that a man can compete with women. Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, says that the biological men are destroying women's sports, and that it's simply not fair for female athletes to be forced to compete against them. "When you have young women who have worked for years, through their careers in high school and you have moms and dads who have gotten up in the dark at 5:00 AM to drive their daughters to swim practice... but now they're being forced to compete against biological men... It's not a fair fight," Nance argues. "They can't win. Ultimately, they cannot win. And Lia Thomas typifies this issue." Nance joins this bonus episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss a Title IX complaint her organization filed, and how transgenderism is destroying women's sports. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey Daily Signal listeners, Doug Blair here back again with a bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. Had the wonderful opportunity to talk with the CEO of Concerned Women for America, Penny Nance. We talked about some of the ongoing issues with transgender athletes competing against biological women. So that's biological men against biological women. Fascinating conversation. Hope you enjoy. My guest today is Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women, for America. Penny, welcome to the show. It's great being on with you, Dag. Thanks for inviting

me. Of course. So I want to talk to you about an issue that is kind of popping up a lot recently, which is transgenderism and gender ideology. Concern Women for America has filed a Title IX against the University of Pennsylvania over biologically male swimmer Leah Thomas, who is competing with females in swimming. So what are the details of this Title IX complaint? So this is a complaint for a civil rights violation against women, against the women's swimmers. We're sort of acting as the association of women, right? This is not our first complaint. I had people say, finally, you know, like, no, actually not finally.

We've been working on this issue for over three years. We've worked and locked arms with sort of unlikely, you know, coalitions of women, like women's liberation front, who are self-identified radical feminists. Many of them are bisexual or lesbians, not our normal allies. You know, they're not the pro-lifers that we often work with. They are women who just recognize that this is an existential threat to women's sports, and it's a threat to the law's recognition of the unique dignity of women. So it is a very important issue.

Just one aspect of this is women's sports. but it's a very important aspect of women's sports. When you have young women who have worked all for years to their careers in high school, and this is happening in high schools, by the way, and you have moms and dads who have gotten up in the dark at 5 a.m. to drive their daughters to swim practice or to track or whatever it is. But yet now they're being forced to compete against biological men who are biologically men all the way down to the cellular level, it's not a fair fight.

They can't win. Ultimately, they cannot win. And Leah Thomas typifies this issue. You know, Leo initially born Will Thomas, has a biological male in every way. And self-identifies now took hormones and now, you know, repressed his testosterone. drone, but still is six foot four tall, has a bigger heart, bigger lungs, better oxygenated blood, and is winning and breaking records. Of course he is.

Yeah. Now, it does sound like there's strange bedfellows in the situation where people who might not align with all of the values of concerned women for America are coming together. Now, I find that so interesting because, you know, we've seen this before where, like, at the Heritage Foundation, we've had kind of radical feminist groups come to us and say, like, we don't agree with the policy, but, you know, this is an existential issue. What does that say to you about how serious this topic is? Well, and I have a podcast as well called Concern Women Today and would invite your listeners to tune into an episode I did with a woman named Karadanski, who is a

radical feminist. I met her initially through Women's Liberation Front. She's written a book specifically on this issue. She's always voted Democrat, except for the year she voted for the Green Party. She and I figured out that we've canceled out each other's votes every single time we've ever voted. But what she said, and I think this is so true, the question was posed to her, I think actually at a heritage event. Who's going to solve this? If the left can't solve this, can the right solve this? And the answer is, the left nor the right are going to solve this. This is something we've got to solve together. I mean, this is something that it doesn't know boundaries of politics. It is a justice issue, frankly. When you have Martina Navitralova saying it's

cheating, when you have women who are not, you know, they're not pro-lifers, they're not church ladies, they're not of our ilk, but they just recognize that it's unjust. You have parents, and by the way, I think 2022 is the year of the parent that have just had it or just had it of like the pronoun nonsense and the, you know, the hyperbolic authoritarian left repressing the rights of their children in school, they're done. And so they're coming together to stand up and say, no, this is wrong. This is not fair. You can have co-ed sports. If Lea Thomas wants to swim on a co-ed team, do it, whatever you want to do.

But this is not fair to force my daughter to swim against a biological male. It's not, it's biology. It's not politics. You know, God made us, the same cognitively, we're equal in every way, but biologically we're different and that's fine. Right, right. We embrace those differences. Absolutely.

And now you have this complaint lodged against the University of Pennsylvania. Are there legal consequences to this? What happens now? Well, there's a couple of things. And there are, recognized there's all kinds of lawsuits already on this issue, right, that have been filed. although not specifically on this issue. Our complaint is with the Department of Education. This is our third complaint that we filed.

Our first one was Franklin Pierce University, and we won. And they were forced to back down on their policy on this issue. We still have one pending on the University of Montana, and then our third is now the University of Pennsylvania. And, you know, we're going to look around to see, and we're exploring the opportunity of actually doing. a straight-up lawsuit against either the Ivy Leagues or against University of Pennsylvania and then in addition to that NCAA.

So we're kind of working out the issue of standing. But the problem is the most straightforward way to go after this would be for the women's swimmers to do it, but they're terrified. They've been threatened. If they're still in school, their scholarships have been threatened. And even more profoundly shocking is these young women are, forced to be in locker rooms with biological men. And by the way, that's a violation of their Title IX rights.

And they're told, you better not complain. Right. You better not complain. And as a woman who has, you know, I have spoken very openly about an assault, a physical assault and attempted rape that happened to me as a younger woman. I've testified before their Senate Judiciary Committee on the Debbie Smith Act. I mean, I've written in my book about this issue. We have come a long way on that issue because we taught women 20 years ago that if in your gut you sense something's wrong, then it's wrong, right?

And you don't have to be nice because predators use nice against you. And now we're saying, no, if you feel like something's wrong, shut up. You're a bigot. You better push that down. And that is dangerous. Right. There does seem to be this coordinated push from both politicians and legacy media to say things like, well, you know, this is normal. This is natural. This is just the way it is. So I am curious about your thoughts on the media coverage of Leah Thomas's story because they're trying to prop this up as like a civil rights thing where this is the new frontier of it was, you know, we had segregated sports and now we don't have segregated sports. Now we have, you know, transgender athletes in the pool. That's just the next frontier. One NBC news article. tried to compare it to that, where they were saying that Leah Thomas is the new Jackie Robinson.

What are your thoughts on that? And then also, how does that impact how Americans view gender ideology when the media seems to be so in the tank for this position? Well, I think at the beginning, Americans played along because they didn't really know what to think about it. But as they get more and more information and recognize, you can't take enough hormones in the world to change the size of your heart or your lungs, right? Or your bone structure or all those things. and they actually take a look at the issue, it just makes sense, right? It's just common sense that this is a biological man competing against a biological woman. It's not a fair fight. And the other issue is the fact that we're getting ready in June to hit the 50th anniversary of Title IX.

Women, but way before me, women who are not of my ilk, probably never had any interest in the Heritage Foundation and Fullner, your founder, right? didn't vote for Reagan, right, back in the day, fought to the Nell to actually have some civil rights protections for women in education. And sports comes underneath that heading. But there's other things too. And so this is a violation and, frankly, a betrayal of all they did and all the hard work they did. It was, it was the initial legislation was offered by a. Congresswoman from Hawaii named Patsy Mink. Patsy Mink was not a conservative.

She's turning over in her grave right now, recognizing that all her hard work, all the work they did, has been undermined by the community that I'm sure they support it. So I would venture to say even within the LGBT and perhaps T community, that it's not monolithic on this issue, anymore than women are monolithic on the issue of abortion. I think there are certainly people who are like, wait, too far. Like this is not what we signed up for. This is a part of our coalition. Women are a part of our coalition.

But I will tell you that the Women's Liberation Front and their ilk feel very portrayed by this. But, you know, again, you've got a media push and you mentioned it, and you're right to the point where, you know, Sports Illustrated has tried to make Leah Thomas a hero. They put him on the cover of their magazine. You know, I think I would rather have seen Emma Wyant on the cover, who, by the way, Governor Ron DeSantis, you've got to love this, you know, has now said that she's proclaimed her the winner. She's a Sarasota, Georgia resident. And he put out yesterday that, you know, actually, the real winner was the woman who came in second. Right, right. Now, I mean, we've discussed a little bit about the female swimmers who are in the pool with Thomas.

have we heard any of their stories from the people who are willing to speak out and to say, I'm uncomfortable with this? What are they saying about how this is affecting them? Well, they are starting to come out. And some are public and some are not. But, you know, we had our Young Women for America leaders, Annabelle Rutledge, who's our national director for Young Women for America and many of our Young Women for America leaders, including a student.

It was at Georgia Tech was where the NCAA. CAA Division I swimming championship happens. So we had our Georgia Tech leaders there, and we had other women, a woman who had been forced to play against a male for volleyball and a women's volleyball team, which, by the way, the men's volleyball net is seven inches higher than the women. So he comes over and plays on the women's team, and actually it's much easier. Right, right. I do want to get in here that Leah Thomas, when he competed as a male, was ranked 462nd.

Of course, he was number one then as in the women's team. So, again, it's just indicative of the issue. But they're coming forward and saying, like, you know, I feel betrayed. And, you know, especially the ones that they're graduating seniors and this is their last chance. And when you have students, athletes that are at the Olympic level, but they can't win against a man. I mean, what does that say? We also, interestingly enough, on the ground outside the NCAA championship. Our young women for America leaders were telling the stories of parents and athletes coming out, high-fiving them and saying,

thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being on our side. We feel like we can't speak up. And we are also hearing stories that the coaches are specifically saying to the girls, you better not say anything. Interesting. I mean, we did discuss a little bit about how Leah Thomas is now the most prominent one of these transgender athletes that's gaining national attention, but he's not the only one. Are we seeing the fact that there's more and more of these men competing in women's sports as an indication that this is becoming normalized in the culture? Well, and I had this conversation with a reporter, you know, a while back.

And the reporter said to me, well, you know, this isn't happening very often? I said, but isn't the goal for it to happen everywhere? Like, you need to ask the other side if their goal is for it to happen everywhere, you know. And she, you know, decided not to do that, but she should have because it is the goal. And the thing about holding up someone as a hero encourages other students to come forward and to switch literally teams, right, and to swim on the women's team versus the boys' team. And so I really feel for these women athletes, like, you know, I feel like the other side is so good at playing the compassion card. And I do have compassion for Leah Thomas and others. I mean, I believe that gender dysphoria is a real thing.

And I think we don't do them favors by just pretending like, you know, oh, okay, that's normal. That's you. I think it's much deeper than that. And I don't doubt that there's like deep, just deep issues there. And I have compassion and pray for them. Like I wish I could do something more for them. But also, why are we not having compassion for the women on the team, the M-O-Y-Ns? the other student from Virginia Tech.

Ricka Gorgi. Rika Gorgi, who wasn't even allowed to compete. She was number 17. You know, only 16 slots were available. So she didn't get to go at all. Why do we not have compassion for them? The women that are in the locker room that are forced, you know, against everything that is wired into our DNA, modesty,

is part of how we are, how we protect ourselves. We could say it's something that God gave us or biology, gave us, but it's true, right? And it's there. And so we were telling them to deny their, like, you know, their sort of nature of modesty and to ignore it. And so, you know, I don't know why that the media is so focused on just one side of this story because there really are two sides. And that's the issue. There's a tension of rights. And we're going to get to the bottom of it, but the other side doesn't want to have the conversation. And the way they try to silence the conversation is they say, shut up, you're a bigot.

Well, that's not going to work. We're not going to allow that. Absolutely. Now, as we've been to wrap up, I think there are a lot of Americans who are probably watching their screens or hearing these news stories about transgender athletes, men, dominating female sports. It's not even close. How do we, as the everyday citizens who maybe don't have daughters in school, make an impact?

How do we stop this from happening? That's a great question. I also should point out that day one, the beginning of the Biden administration, is an executive order on this point. So you need to make sure. that you at the local level within your school board are making it very clear that you don't think that this is appropriate for your local schools to allow. You need to make sure, run for school board, by the way. I say this every chance I get, particularly to women, to conservative

women, we need you. It is the farm team for bigger things, and it's really important at this point. Also, make sure, again, these are often state issues, and write a letter to the NCAA and let them know you are absolutely over this. But, you know, this is a local state issue. There are some federal implications. We didn't even get into women's prisons. Women are, men are being put in women's prisons almost all over this country. And domestic violence shelters, violence against women act has provisions that allow that.

So it's a really big fight. I would ask, you know, your listeners to come to concernwomen.org. We've got more materials and more information there. We have an action page that'll tell you just about everything you need to know. Excellent. Well, that was Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America. Penny, I really appreciate your time. Enjoyed it.

Thanks. Thank you so much again for listening to that bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. As always, you can find the Daily Signal podcast on your favorite listening app of choice, including Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on your app of choice and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening, and we're back with you all tomorrow.

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