Sherry Boschert, a Lebanon resident, is the author of “37 Words: Title IX and Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination.”

Conservative lawmakers’ bills aiming to curtail the rights of transgender students often claim to be doing so in order to protect students. Judging those claims by what legislators do and not what they say can tell a different story.

Three bills currently being considered by the New Hampshire legislature target transgender kids. Bills introduced in 2020, 2021, and 2022 all tried unsuccessfully to exclude transgender girls in New Hampshire from competing in school sports. Letting trans girls and women play is “a violation of the rights of the female competitors,” one Republican legislator said. Republicans in at least 18 states have passed laws banning trans students from sports.

In athletics, at least, there is an easy way to tell if these legislators really care about “protecting” women athletes. It’s called the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA). Every U.S. college and university with athletics is required to submit yearly data to the government about their men’s and women’s athletics programs. Take a look at almost any EADA report and you’ll find blatant discrimination against women athletes that is a far bigger problem than anything to do with trans athletes. College and university athletics routinely violate Title IX, the 50-year-old civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. There is no EADA requirement for high schools yet, but it would likely show the same pattern.

What are legislators doing to protect girls and women from this systemic discrimination in higher education? Nothing, so far.

Let’s look at the EADA for the University of New Hampshire (UNH) main campus, for example. Women were 57% of its 11,205 undergraduates but only 52% of its athletes in 2021-2022. That means the university denied 25 women athletes a chance to play and gave those opportunities to men. The university gave only 31% of its athletics recruiting budget to women’s teams. And by giving only 51% of athletic student aid to women instead of the 57% they deserved, the university took $620,072 away from women athletes who surely could use the financial help.

Athletics in educational institutions are supposed to be about just that – education. The educational experience of men is not so much more valuable than the educational experience of women to justify such lopsided favoritism.

The discrimination hits coaches too. The University of New Hampshire hired twice as many men compared with women for coaching, with 11 vs. 5 head coaches and 35 vs. 16 assistant coaches. Whether a head coach was a man or a woman, if they coached a women’s team they were paid less than half (47%) of what a head coach for a men’s team made, on average. Assistant coaches for women’s teams got only 73% of the average pay for those coaching men’s teams. All of which shortchanged women athletes.

Private universities aren’t any better. The EADA for Dartmouth College for 2021-2022 shows women were 49% of undergraduates but 45% of athletes, meaning the college denied 37 women their chance to play. Women’s teams got only 38% of the athletics recruiting budget. Dartmouth hired 20 men and 11 women as head coaches and paid those who coached women’s teams only 71% of what head coaches for men’s teams made on average. Of the 45 men and 20 women assistant coaches, those coaching women’s teams made 66% of those coaching men’s teams.

This discrimination is happening in broad daylight, backed by data submitted by the colleges themselves and made available on the internet. They document that dozens of women athletes in these two colleges, and thousands across the country, are getting the short end of the stick. Rather than address that, conservative lawmakers push bills to manufacture fear of a minute number of transgender athletes in a culture war that they hope will bring them votes.

My message to legislators: If you really want to protect women athletes, show me new bills to even the playing field for men’s and women’s teams. Show me a law requiring equal financing and equal pay for men’s and women’s teams. Show me the money.

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