Rogers signs pledge from anti-trans group to ‘defend women’s sports’  • Michigan Advance

A day before the Republican primary election, U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers connected with a right-wing nonprofit connected to Project 2025 and anti-trans activists.

Rogers, a former congressman who represented his mid-Michigan district for seven terms, sat down Monday in Oakland County for a round \table discussion that included former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and athlete and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines as Rogers signed the Stand With Women Commitment, a pledge created by Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) “to uphold legislation that preserves female opportunities and private spaces.” 

That legislation would ban trans athletes from participating in sports that align with their gender identity.

“In front of a packed room in Grand Blanc, I signed a pledge to stand up and defend women’s sports,” Rogers posted to social media. “In the Senate, I’ll always fight for our daughters and granddaughters.”

IWV is the 501(c)(4) “action arm” to its sister organization, the 501(c)(3) Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), one of the groups that is on the advisory board for Project 2025, an authoritarian blueprint for a second President Donald Trump term in the White House created by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. 

IWF and DeVos have also teamed up to oppose the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX, that seeks to protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination “based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” The updated regulations are also aimed at “restoring and strengthening full protection from sexual violence and other sex-based harassment.”

But in its release about Monday’s gathering with Rogers, IWV described the Title IX rule as pressuring “schools to let males who identify as women take women’s scholarships and roster spots,” adding that “Rogers’s commitment to preserve uniform, biological definitions for sex-based words in federal law will preserve equal opportunity for women and girls in all aspects of education, including in sports.”