Stop H.R.28 - Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025

An activist friend of mine, referring to a proposed Federal law,  posted the following on March 3, 2025:

My political post for the month: some may be aware that this evening the Senate will be voting on the Protection of women in sports act *, which would prevent those with bats & balls, and those who identify with those who don’t have them, from competing against those who were born without them. This is a law that supports women in sports, and clearly those who oppose it really don’t care about women losing athletic opportunities and achieving the success they deserve. How anyone could support a political party that supports this travesty is beyond me! It amazes me that the Republican Senators need just 3 Democratic votes to pass this legislation and that it is uncertain they will get them. It is this sort of outrageous policy stance that is causing Democrats - and will continue to - lose elections. #protection of women in sports act [sic]

My Comments:

I agree with the intent but not the bill. These decisions should be left to the governing bodies of the particular sports organizations, be that be school boards, rule-making bodies of private sports institutions, et al. As a believer in reigning in the size and scope of government, especially the Federal Government, I don’t want to have Congress wading into this issue. As I recall, Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education and leave education to the states. I agree. As I understand this Act, it applies only to school athletic programs. If Trump means what he says, he will veto this bill if it ever gets to his desk.

My friend responded:

my take is that because of the law Title IX, the regulations propagated by the federal government and the several “dear colleague“ letters that have been issued by the DOE, requiring adherence to DOE policy statements or threatening revocation of funding, this can only be resolved at the federal level. The alternative is that you could have Lea Thomas’s spring up in various states competing against women in other states that prohibit those with bats and balls from competing against those without. It’s handled with federal level legislation. [sic]

• 
  

My reply:

It’s already been resolved—by the courts, which threw out Biden’s twisted LBGTQ policy in its entirety a week and a half before Trump took office. “The alternative” is exactly the point—it’s rightfully and properly an issue for the states and their courts. Title IX is a bad law. It invites twisted interpretations. Congress should focus its energies on repealing, or at least amending, Title IX. H.R.28 is an unnecessary and dangerous escalation in Federal power over education.

For the record, I support the complete separation of education and state—and a Constitutional Amendment to lock in that principle—in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of church and state, and I will support any legislation that advances educational freedom toward that ultimate goal.

* [Note: The bill failed to get the votes in the Senate.]

Related Reading:

Beware of Federal Education Policies—Even If You Like Them by Kerry McDonald for FEE

Transgender vs. Transgender Impersonator [aka gender identity]

Crossing, a Transgender Memoir by Dierdre McCloskey

On the ‘Transgender’ Phenomenon

Why elite women’s sports need to be based on sex, not gender Doriane Lambelet Coleman

Beneath the Title IX Controversy

Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits? by me for TOS

Education in a Free Society—C. Bradley Thompson for The Objective Standard

QUORA: 'What is one constitutional amendment that should be added to the U.S. Constitution that does not exist today? Why does it need to be added?'

The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools—Andrew Bernstein for The Objective Standard

The Idiotic “Economic Blackout” Charade

CNN reported on the February 28, 2025 “economic blackout. In Today’s ‘economic blackout’ began from an unlikely source. But it’s tapped into Americans’ anger, CNN’s  Nathaniel Meyersohn reports:

In early February, John Schwarz, a self-described “mindfulness and meditation facilitator,” proposed a 24-hour nationwide “economic blackout” of major chains on the last day of the month.

Schwarz urged people to forgo spending at Amazon, Walmart, and all other major retailers and fast-food companies for a day. He called on them to spend money only at small businesses and on essential needs.

“The system has been designed to exploit us,” said Schwarz, who goes by “TheOneCalledJai” on social media, in a video to his roughly 250,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok. “On February 28, we are going to remind them who really holds the power. For one day, we turn it off.”

I posted this article to Facebook, with this commentary, slightly edited for clarity:

John Schwarz, the architect of the recent  “economic blackout” of major retailers and fast-food companies, says the purpose is to protest “the system [that] has been designed to exploit us.” Are these the same companies growing big by successfully “exploiting” us by providing mass market products that improve our lives and that we willingly buy? Is this the same system, called Capitalism, that grew out of the Founding principles of unalienable individual rights that make America great and moral and our lives so rich and free?

Schwarz demands that we “spend money only at small businesses and on essential needs.” Are these the same small businesses many of whom started the bait-&-switch practice of greeting us with a welcome sign for credit cards, only to then charge us a penalty for using them? And why only “essential needs?” Is poverty the goal of this guy? What makes our lives worth living is that we can afford much more than essential needs.

Schwarz’s ignorant crusade is, of course, Marxist nonsense. Companies no more exploit us than consumers exploit them. Companies engage in voluntary trade with their customers. Trade is win-win and thus non-exploitative. Count me out of this and other such idiotic, anti-American charades. I won’t join the army of useful idiots who blindly fall for it. Business—especially big business—is today’s most persecuted minority. We should be thankful for big business and instead be protesting the encroachment of big government on our lives and freedoms.  

The article puts MAGA as the inspiration for the protest. But undoubtedly it was probably inspired, at least in part, by Joe Biden’s Big Lie of blaming private enterprise for the inflation the Federal Government's own policies caused. Remember “shrinkflation,” “greedflation,” and “corporate Greed?”

Related Listening:

America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business by Ayn Rand, Recorded live at Chicago’s McCormick Place. [This talk was also published as an essay in Rand’s book Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal.]

Obama’s Fascist “Partnership” With Big Business

B of A's Debit Charges: It's About More Than Fees

Big Government vs. Big Business; or, Political Power vs. Economic Power

The Dollar and the Gun by Harry Binswanger

The Star-Ledger Exploits a Workers Death to Attack Big Business

Quora: ‘Is capitalism based on the exploitation of others?’