Nancy Hogshead: Our SOS Fair Play Award Winner For 2025
Nancy Hogshead has long championed Sex-Based Women's Rights In Sport as a leading light in the U.S. campaign to have Title IX applied as intended when it came into force half a century ago. Our small plaudit is underpinned by this: courage is at the core of the woman and her work
On Tuesday this week, Nancy Hogshead will be right where you'd expect her to be: at a rally on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. in defence of the rights of women in sport to have their own sex-based category and equality rights, and the original intention of Title IX legislation upheld.
In her own words, when promoting the moment at her Champion Women organisation, Nancy, a triple Olympic swim champion at a home Games in LA, 1984, pointed to the importance of the January 13th session with this rallying cry:
"That is the day that opening oral arguments will be heard for two cases centred around the protection of women’s sports. There are two sexes. Men and women are different. And women and girls deserve their own sports. This is what is at stake. This is what we are fighting for. Join us."
For those who are unfamiliar with Nancy's work and would like to know more, the Champion Women website is good place to start:
There are three key strands to Nancy's work at Champion Women:
- Ending sexual abuse in sport
- Where trans inclusion fits into Fair and Safe Sport for women
- Title IX and equality in sport
That work and advocacy as a human rights lawyer whose knowledge of Olympic sport, how men and women work together, how teams work, what legal rights are in play and how they affect women in particular is second to none, is recognised today with our SOS Fair Play Award, granted to those who battle injustice in swimming.
Her advocacy, across all sports willing to engage on the issue of fair and safe play for women, is nothing new. Here's a couple of long-read reminders of Nancy's work and fight for the rights of women in the face of the growing threat from male inclusion in female sports and the malaise of governance (NB: on the way to swimming being among the first sports to protect the women's categories for females by excluding anyone who developed through Tanner Stage 2 male puberty)
Craig Lord
Craig Lord
Our 2025 Courage Cups this day went to Bobby Finke and the Ellesmere Parents Group and their young swimmers:
Craig Lord
Of course, 'this woman's work, this woman's world', as Kate Bush toned it, also takes a lot of courage when the challenge in focus is of the nature that Nancy and many other women have been dealing with.
Here's Nancy's recent call on an Olympic net platform to be clear and accurate in the use of language used on an article s about trans inclusion:
#Journalists! Learn to write clearly: Gender identity is irrelevant sports. The issue is MEN in WOMEN’s sports.
— on Jan 28th France will decide whether the French Athletics Federation discriminated against a male sprinter from competing in women’s events.
- According to French law, this male is legally female.
- According to World Athletics, he is ineligible to compete in women’s events, regardless of his legal status.
— The 22y/o sprinter, is one of the fastest “women” runners in France, accused the FAA of discrimination and moral harassment.
— Said the man trying to compete in Womens events about the legal proceeding: “It was extremely harsh; I had to do a lot of explaining; there is a lack of understanding on essential subjects,” Diouf said afterwards, visibly affected by his own plight.
— World Athletics regulations have excluded men who have undergone male puberty from women’s competitions, regardless of hormone levels, since 2023.
— The man said the World Athletics regulations shouldn’t apply to HIM, his process and his response to drugs.
— But the judges weren’t buying it. One maintained that scientific studies showed that Diouf’s transgender status gave him an advantage over his female rivals.
— Jean Boudot, the athletes’ lawyer, was told to leave the courtroom if he disagreed with how the hearing was being conducted, an episode the lawyer later described as ‘totally surreal’.
— The male athlete accused the FAA engaging in “psychological harassment” when he received emails about track meets his times qualified for under female standards, only to be told later that he was ineligible. The FAA replied that the emails were generated by an automated system, that they weren’t designed to harass Him.
— The FAA lawyer, Julien Bérenger: “Inclusion cannot be achieved at any cost,” - to WOMEN, aligning himself with World Athletics’ stance and the defence of competitive fairness FOR WOMEN.
- The male athlete wants individual assessments of advantage, and cites French law allowing him be considered a woman, and therefore to compete against women.
— How will this conflict of laws turn out?
