MADISON – Yesterday the WIAA banned biological men from participating in women’s sports. This common-sense decision is a great move for Wisconsin, for women, and for women’s and girls’ sports in the Badger State.
Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) supported legislation in 2024 that would have ensured the protection of women’s sports, as well as the privacy and safety of women in high school sports around Wisconsin. Unfortunately, Governor Evers vetoed this bill.
Wisconsin Family Action’s President Emeritus, Julaine Appling, a former high-school and collegiate athlete, has fought to ensure that younger generations of women would have the same protections and rights she had as a female athlete. Appling shared the following in light of yesterday’s decision,
“Yesterday was a bright day for Wisconsin and for women’s sports. We applaud the decision of the WIAA to affirm the directives from the Trump administration to ensure only biological women can participate in women’s sports. This decision protects the privacy and safety of girls around our state and ensures a fair playing field for them. Girls deserve every opportunity to earn a spot on a team, to play for and gain championships, and certainly to have equal access to athletic scholarships. This decision affirms all of that.”
WFA knows that even though this battle has been won, the war to ensure women’s sports is protected from biological males taking over women’s sports is not over. More must be done to ensure the protection of women’s sports in Wisconsin for generations of female athletes that are yet to come, after President Trump leaves the Oval Office.
Wisconsin Family Action thanks Representative Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) for her work to protect women’s sports in the past and encourages those currently in the state legislature, as well as the governor, to do the right thing and enshrine these protections for future female athletes.
Appling commented, “This decision from the WIAA moves our state in the right direction. The legislature and the governor should take heed and pass bills to protect women’s sports at all levels from biological males. No girl or woman should ever be forced to share a locker room or any other supposedly “safe-space” with, or compete against, a biological male against her will. We applaud the WIAA for this change in policy and practice.”
