Jones, Smolak and Bock Detail Failures in Women’s Sports
Their written testimony puts girls’ athletic opportunities, safety and fair competition before senators—and calls for sex verification and accountability.
Jones said girls are losing athletic opportunities, records, roster spots, championships and recognition while being told to step aside for male athletes1.
The enforcement gap
Jones said the NCAA’s policy lacked a clear definition and a reasonable enforcement or screening mechanism; Bock likewise criticized sports rules that, in his account, lack sex verification and consequences for noncompliance2. Bock said inadequate rules and a lack of accountability undermine women’s opportunities to compete on a level playing field.
Examples across sports
Jones said the NCAA, the U.S. Jones said the NCAA, the U.S. Jones said the USOPC had issued a directive requiring national governing bodies to comply with federal law and the executive order protecting the female category, but was not ensuring enforcement. S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), USA Rugby and USA Ultimate. She said the NCAA was defending its decision to let a male athlete win a women’s championship and share a locker room with female athletes, while its revised policy still lacked clear category boundaries and a workable enforcement mechanism. Jones also testified that USA Ultimate selected two male athletes for women’s positions on U.S. national teams competing at the 2026 World Championships1. She said USA Cycling granted James “Amanda” Olson an international license for the Philadelphia Cycling Classic three weeks before her testimony1.
Smolak testified that the man was a registered sex offender3 who had served 15 years of an original 41-year military prison sentence3. She said his offenses involved children under 113. After learning his status, the club president asked him to leave3. Smolak said players were not formally told about his status, and that the national governing body’s leadership responded that it could not control individual clubs’ personnel decisions3.
Bock described failures across professional and amateur sport: he said the LPGA, Major League Volleyball, the National Women’s Soccer League and the WNBA lacked strict biological eligibility standards and sex-verification testing2. He said U.S. Soccer allowed players to register for amateur teams according to the gender team with which they identified, and that USA Volleyball relied on birth certificates while allowing males to compete in women’s junior competitions2. Bock also faulted the USOPC’s safety policy for having no prescriptive terms, compliance timelines or sanctions, and said USA Cycling relied primarily on self-designation and birth-certificate evidence without verification testing2.
The SRY screening case
Bock attached an amicus brief by developmental biologist Emma Hilton and the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS), filed in support of petitioners in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., cases before the Supreme Court on review from the Ninth and Fourth Circuits4. The brief’s authors argue that sex screening can verify eligibility for 99.9% of women athletes through methods they describe as non-intrusive, inexpensive and discreet4. They propose SRY-gene detection as a screening step, with further medical assessment only in rare cases where the gene is detected, and argue that reliable verification protects fairness, safety and privacy4. The brief argues that women cannot protect their privacy in locker rooms without a substantial effort to verify sex4.
Calls for action
Jones called for clear category boundaries, enforcement mechanisms and penalties for noncompliance, and said sports policies should protect sex-based categories for women and girls1. Smolak urged leaders to address eligibility at every level, from youth and high school through amateur, masters and professional competition, and stated that women’s sports should be for females only3. Bock gave Congress a more specific prescription: build on executive orders by requiring mandatory sex-verification testing and making sports organizations legally accountable for protecting women’s equal opportunities2. He also called for organizations to protect women’s access to competition, teams, locker rooms and showers2.
Congress must act
Girls’ sports cannot remain fair and safe when organizations write rules without clear boundaries, verification or accountability2. Congress should take up the witnesses’ call for enforceable sex-based categories, sex verification and consequences for governing bodies that fail to protect female athletes1.
Sources
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