Protecting Girls' Remains a Political Winner

Victor Joecks
Mon, 12 Jan 2026 11:04:25 -0800
Opinion

Keeping men out of women's sports is smart policy and smart politics. Just look at what happened recently in Nevada.

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo recently rolled out the Protect Girls' Sports initiative. As the name implies, he wants to amend the Nevada Constitution to keep biological boys and men from participating in girls' and women's sports. While the exact language hasn't been released, this is fantastic news.

In Fall 2024, the University of Nevada, Reno's volleyball team was scheduled to play against San Jose State. The problem was that the San Jose State team included Blaire Fleming, a man pretending to be a woman. One of Fleming's own teammates, Brooke Slusser, described Fleming's hits as "scary." Slusser believed "that Fleming's spikes significantly increased the risk of her, teammates and opponents being concussed," according to a lawsuit.
Updated: Mon Jan 12, 2026

Keeping men out of women's sports is smart policy and smart politics. Just look at what happened recently in Nevada.

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo recently rolled out the Protect Girls' Sports initiative. As the name implies, he wants to amend the Nevada Constitution to keep biological boys and men from participating in girls' and women's sports. While the exact language hasn't been released, this is fantastic news.

In Fall 2024, the University of Nevada, Reno's volleyball team was scheduled to play against San Jose State. The problem was that the San Jose State team included Blaire Fleming, a man pretending to be a woman. One of Fleming's own teammates, Brooke Slusser, described Fleming's hits as "scary." Slusser believed "that Fleming's spikes significantly increased the risk of her, teammates and opponents being concussed," according to a lawsuit.

None of this is shocking because, as a group, men are stronger than women. Now, an individual female athlete may be stronger than an individual man. But she's not stronger than top male athletes — or even middling ones.

This was the impetus behind the push to expand women's sports. Women couldn't compete with men, but allowing women to compete against other women created a level playing field.

This is all so obvious that it didn't used to have to be explained. But the left now wants society to believe that men who pretend to be women are women. Never mind the logical contradictions here, which produce absurdities like leftists refusing to define the word "woman."

This larger debate is why the UNR volleyball team faced a choice they never should have had to make. In fall 2024, they courageously decided to forfeit their match to highlight the injustice of being forced to play against a male opponent.

Since then, Nevada has made some progress. Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony, Sarah Johnson, who used to work for Anthony and Marshi Smith, founder of ICONS, among many others, have done outstanding work on this issue. As a result, the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association moved in April to keep boys out of girls' sports. But a constitutional amendment would make this protection more permanent.

You can tell this idea is popular by the response of Nevada Attorney General and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Aaron Ford.

"To all transgender Nevadans: we see you, we hear you, and we will fight by your side," he wrote on X in 2018. He continued, "We stand with you."

But when asked about this initiative, he said, "I personally do not support trans athletes competing in sports opposite their gender assigned at birth."

Ford will stand with you right until doing so costs him electorally. Just look at his on-again, off-again support for making Nevada a sanctuary state.

Perhaps the reason Ford flip-flops so much is that he wants to make sure he has the right footwear for his next lobbyist-funded junket.

It's doubtful that Ford is being direct with voters. In 2023, he signed Nevada on to an amicus brief that sought to help biological boys "participate on their school's girls' sports teams." In 2022, Ford joined a lawsuit seeking to overturn an Arkansas law banning genital mutilation surgery.

It appears he wants voters to think he supports protecting girls' sports while using his authority to do the opposite. Typical politician.

But Ford's latest flip-flop is still revealing. It shows how deeply unpopular it is to force girls to compete against boys.