Courtesy of CNU Sports
The Biggest Threat to Women’s Sports Isn’t Trans Athletes. It’s the Trump Administration’s Failure to Uphold Title IX’s Promise of Equal Opportunity.
The politicians who have spent years claiming to “protect women’s sports” have been remarkably absent when it comes to enforcing the law that actually guarantees women equal athletic opportunities. W
hile the Trump administration has devoted enormous energy to policing transgender participation, Title IX complaints involving unequal opportunities, funding and treatment have languished. The result is a political performance that invokes women athletes while doing little to address the inequities they continue to face.
The real defenders of women’s sports are the athletes themselves.
This month alone, women at Christopher Newport University and California Lutheran University successfully used Title IX to force their schools to reverse decisions that eliminated athletic opportunities for women. Their victories are a reminder of what Title IX was designed to do: expand opportunity, not fuel culture wars.
If we truly care about women’s sports, we should celebrate the athletes and advocates who are making the law’s promise of equality a reality—not those who merely claim to speak in their name.
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Antiabortion Extremists Can’t Target Abortion Pill Prescribers If They Don’t Know Their Names
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Todd Blanche Suggests He Is Open to Using the DOJ to Restrict Mailing the Abortion Pill
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‘I Don’t Want To Die’: Texas Patients Are Afraid to Get Pregnant
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Antiabortion Groups Pressure Todd Blanche to Weaponize the Justice Department
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The Blueprint to Save America’s Moms
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Every Mother’s Fear and Every Black Mother’s Nightmare: What Happened to Nolan Xavier Wells?
Michele Goodwin examines the tragic death of 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells through the lens of reproductive justice, arguing that the fight for justice does not end at birth but extends to a child’s right to grow up safely. Drawing connections to the stories of Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Ruby Bridges, she explores the enduring fear many Black mothers carry—that their children may not make it home safely because of racism, violence or systemic failures.
The episode also examines the unanswered questions surrounding Wells’ death after a July 4 outing on Mississippi’s Horn Island. Goodwin reviews what is publicly known, the concerns raised by Wells’ family about the investigation, and why they have sought an independent autopsy and retained civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. Framed as a public service announcement, the episode calls for a thorough investigation while reflecting on the historical and ongoing struggle for accountability, concluding with Mamie Till-Mobley’s enduring reminder that injustice anywhere demands the attention of us all.
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Saving Seneca Falls: The Birthplace of ‘All Men and Women Are Created Equal’ Needs Saving
A caved-in roof. A crumbling porch. A memorial water wall in need of restoration.
These are just a few areas of the $10 million of deferred maintenance needed at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, N.Y., one of 11 sites on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2026 list of “Most Endangered Historic Places.” The Women’s Rights National Historical Park celebrates the first Women’s Rights Convention, held on July 19 and 20, 1848.
Of the 433 parks within the National Park System, only 13 are dedicated to women’s history, making the inclusion of the Women’s Rights park on the “most endangered” list even more imperative. Rather than merely lament a need for restoration, the list, according to the trust, aims to increase “visibility, public attention and new resources to save and activate historic places for the public good.”
The story of suffrage, like so many stories in our nation’s history, is neither uncomplicated nor is it a “single story” that’s “preserved in amber,” insists Miranda Johnson-Haddad, president of the Friends of the Women’s Rights National Historical Park, the non-profit philanthropic group that supports the park.
Johnson-Haddad emphasizes that the park’s leadership wants to continue to have “brave conversations about difficult subjects,” including that some suffragists, like Stanton, succumbed to white supremacist thinking—despite being active in the abolition movement—championing the right to vote for white women, but not for Black men and women. No Black women were known to be in attendance at the first Seneca Falls Convention, and only one Black man, Frederick Douglass, signed the declaration.Still, “these are stories that belong to all of us in all their messiness and complexity,” Johnson-Haddad stresses, “and that can guide us through the current messy complexity.” She cites “Bread and Roses,” a protest song dating back to 1912: “As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days / The rising of the women means the rising of the [human] race.”
April Hall
Keeping Score: Feminists Denounce Supreme Court Anti-Trans Ruling; Trump Tries to Hijack America 250; Camp Mystic Will Not Reopen; Birthright Citizenship Safe for Now
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week:
—The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, but also allowed discrimination against trans student athletes. “When politicians convince the public that any girl could be ‘the wrong kind of girl,’ they invite harassment, intimidation, invasive questioning or even an inspection of their body by a total stranger,” warns Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
—Feminists mark four years without Roe.
—Trump continues to push voter suppression tactics through any means necessary.
—Young women who receive the HPV vaccine are at almost zero risk of dying from cervical cancer.
—A weekend of action on voting rights will take place from July 17-19.
—Olivia Rodrigo launches all-women music festival to raise money for organizations centered on women and girls.
—Ninety-seven percent of single moms experienced housing hardships in the past year, and 85 percent reported food insecurity.
—Federal agents shot and killed Joan Sebastián Guerrero in Maine and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas, during traffic stops by ICE. Both men had been living in the U.S. for years with their partners and children.
—Feminist Majority Foundation president and publisher of Ms. Ellie Smeal won the National Organization for Women Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring her decades of feminist activism and organizing.
—The inhumane “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center has closed.
—Camp Mystic in central Texas won’t reopen this summer, a year after the tragic flood that killed 28 people, primarily young girls.
—Ahead of their wedding, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce donated a total of $26 million to 20 charities, including food banks, children’s hospitals, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and other education nonprofits.
—Aviator Wally Funk died at age 87. She was the first female flight inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration and taught more than 3,000 people how to fly.
… and more.
