By Hannah Nightingale – The Postmillennial
XX-XY Athletics, the athletic clothing brand that supports women’s sports, has launched a fund to support female athletes who are speaking out against the inclusion of biological males in women’s sports and help take “monetary cancellation” off the table. The fund launched the same day that the Biden administration’s Title IX rewrite goes into effect.
Speaking with The Post Millennial, XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey said the fund was born out of a desire to influence the conversation surrounding the fairness of including biological males in women’s sports at all levels and to start a “movement of bravery” for women and girls who may not have spoken out over fears of losing scholarship money or spots on teams.
Sey said of these athletes, “we believe sacrifice is necessary to make a difference here, and so we want to encourage competing athletes to stand up, push back, and know that when they do, they won’t be alone in doing so.”
Drawing parallels to athletes speaking out against abuse in the world of gymnastics, Sey said that change would come “from the ground up” with competing athletes speaking out. She said that the gymnastics world didn’t begin to pay attention to abuse in the sport until “competing athletes stood up and pushed back and said no more.” Sey, a former US women’s national artistic gymnastics team member, said she was called a liar when it was her and others who were “decades out of the sport” bringing the issue to light. “So I think change does not happen until those impacted right now demand it,” she added.
The XX-XY Athletics Fund, with its inaugural program the Courage Wins Award, is being funded by portions of proceeds from the clothing business, employees, and investors. “That’s how much we all believe in this,” Sey said. “We’re all putting our own money in to fund this program.”
Members of the public will be able to nominate athletes on XX-XY Athletics’ website who they feel deserve the award. Sey noted that while some stories of female athletes taking a stand against the inclusion of biological males in women’s sports make national headlines, like the case of the West Virginia middle school shot putters who protested by purposefully scratching from competition, many other instances go unnoticed.
Winners of the award will be determined by an advisory council that includes Sey, former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines who rose to prominence after speaking out against competing alongside trans-identified male swimmer Lia Thomas, host of The Sage Steel Show and former ESPN broadcaster Sage Steel, The Michele Tafoya Podcast host and former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya, and Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) President Carrie Lukas.
XX-XY Athletics is partnering with the IWF to distribute funds to the winners.
“At XX-XY we just want to put our money where our mouth is, and we want to elevate the voices of female athletes standing up and doing the right thing, and we want to let them know they will not stand alone,” Sey said.
The Department of Education unveiled its final changes to Title IX in April. The rule changes for federally-funded schools, while not directly addressing the issue of biological males in women’s sports, “protects against discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.” The rule also “promotes accountability by requiring schools to take prompt and effective action to end any sex discrimination in their education programs or activities, prevent its recurrence, and remedy its effects.”
Despite the August 1 deployment of the rule changes, over 2,000 schools across 45 states will be exempt from the rule, with a judge temporarily blocking the regulations from taking effect in schools with a Moms for Liberty parent or a student who is part of the Young American’s Foundation or Female Athletes United, according to the Washington Times. Additionally, over 20 states have been granted temporary stays on implementing the new rules.
According to the website SheWon, which tracks the accomplishments of female athletes “who were displaced by males in women’s sporting events and other types of competitions expressly for women,” a total of 717 female athletes across 522 competitions and 37 different sports have been affected by the inclusion of biological male athletes. At least of 1055 medals, records, scholarships, or other opportunities going back to 2001 have been lost to biological males.
Sey told The Post Millennial that the number of female athletes affected was around 600 when XX-XY Athletics was started four months ago. “It just keeps accelerating,” Sey said.