Acton Institute posts anti-trans article that argues allowing trans women to participate in women’s sports is bad economic policy

Earlier this week the far right Grand Rapids-based think tank, the Acton Institute, posted an article entitled, The Fight to Protect Women’s Sports Is an Economic Battle, Too.

The article was written by Carrie Lukas who is the President of the right wing organization known as the Independent Women’s Forum. The Independent Women’s Forum is an anti-feminist organization predominantly funded by right-wing foundations that has a history of opposing issues like paid family and medical leave while supporting the tobacco industry, banning school curricula on Climate Change and defending the environmentally disastrous practice known as hydraulic fracking.

Taking an anti-trans stance is not new for the Independent Women’s Forum. In 2024, they were part of a speaking tour with Betsy DeVos called Our Bodies, Our Sports, which included a stop in Grand Rapids in 2024, where they argued that allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports was a violation of Title IX.

In the article on the Acton Institute website, Lukas writes:

So what happens when “women’s” teams end up with an entirely male roster? Or when young female athletes hear about males winning competitions meant for women and girls? It sends a message to all those young female athletes—and their parents—that it might not really make sense to continue investing time and money in those extra training opportunities and travel teams. These young women and girls are being told that sports may be a dead end for them if they can’t be sure that female competitions are truly reserved for actual females. Entering competitions when you know the game is rigged against you is demoralizing, and that threatens to undermine a generation of female athletes.

What sports is Lukas referring that is or are likely to be made up of all trans women? The WNBA has no trans women athletes, even though she cites the WNBA in her article.

It is instructive that Lukas never uses the term trans women on always refers to trans women as males. This makes sense, since groups like the Independent Women’s Forum are so anti-trans that the don’t even want to acknowledge that more and more athletes are trans.

However, none of this is surprising considering what Lukas says in her book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex And Feminism. Here are a few enlightened observations that are in her book:

• “More than ever, women in their twenties and thirties live alone, are discarded by their boyfriends after living together, and are watching their biological clock tick past the point of no return.”
• “Women still prefer men who are breadwinners and can protect them physically.”

It is instructive that the Acton Institute would allow writers like Carrie Lukas to post articles on their website, especially since they consider themselves to be a deeply intellectual think tank.