To Every Male Ally in Women's Sports — Thank You. Now Here's What We Actually Need.

There's a moment I keep having. A man — well-meaning, earnest — is pointing out the injustices of being a female athlete. To me. A female athlete. And I want to receive it graciously, I really do. But there's something deeply disorienting about being alerted to your own experience by someone who has never lived it. Like, thank you for the report. I was there.

And yet here we are. At the conference. On the panel. In the workshop. A man at the front of the room, and me in the audience, nodding.

The Part Where I Almost Kept My Mouth Shut

Women's sports is having a moment. A real one. Attendance records, NIL deals, WNBA expansion, viral highlights — the momentum is undeniable. And with it has come a wave of people who want in. Brands, organizations, well-intentioned leaders. Many of them men.

Some of them are incredible partners. They use their platforms, they amplify voices, they fund things that matter. Real allyship moves mountains and I believe that fully.

But here's where I start to lose the thread: when the allyship becomes the main event.

When the workshop on women's health in sport is facilitated by a man whose talking point is "my wife has PCOS." And look — I say this with love — but I am not trauma bonding with you about being a female athlete any more than you want to sit across from me while I break down erectile dysfunction treatments and compare cream options. That's not partnership. That's an awkward dinner nobody asked for.

Proximity to an experience isn't the same as lived experience. And lived experience isn't a credential you can borrow.

I once posted something honest about athletic administration — that the hours, the structure, the way the job is built — it's not designed around the reality of being a woman. Someone came at me hard. Assumed I was a man putting women down. I clarified. I'm a woman. I'm a sister. I'm an ally. I was just telling the truth.

And then they doubled down.

Suddenly I wasn't just defending my opinion — I was defending my right to have it. Proving that my experience was real, that my exhaustion was valid, that my perspective counted. As a woman. To someone who claimed to be fighting for women. I didn't love having to prove that my existence was hard in comparison to a man's. I shouldn't have to. And neither should you.

I kept quiet about this for a long time because I didn't want to seem ungrateful. But I finally had to ask myself: if I'm constantly managing how my frustration lands, am I actually leading — or am I just being managed?

The Glow Up: Getting Okay With Me

And it wasn't just the system. It was the expectations coming from every direction. Other women sometimes wanted warmth, softness, a certain kind of sisterhood that looked a specific way. Men wanted the motherly, approachable, wife-next-door version of a female leader. Smile more. Sand the edges down. Be passionate but not too much. Strong but not threatening. And I kept thinking — which version of me are we performing today? Because I only have the one.

Working in athletics, it's a man's world by sheer population ratio. And I want to be clear — the men I work alongside are often excellent. Women are incredible athletic administrators, organized, relentless, deeply invested in the work. We're just the minority. And the reasons aren't always dramatic. Sometimes it's just this: the most hands-on hours of athletic administration — the games, the decisions, the visible leadership — run from 3 to 10pm. Which happen to be the same hours you're supposed to be raising your children. Nobody designed that conflict maliciously. But nobody designed a solution either.

At some point I just got okay with me. Okay with the fact that my path looked different, that I wasn't always going to fit the mold of what a "leader in women's sports" was supposed to look like. I stopped wanting to play nice in rooms that didn't actually want me — and if I couldn't show up as myself, I just stopped going. Authenticity isn't a buzzword for me, it's a survival strategy. And as a high-functioning woman, you have about .30 seconds to decide if you're going to help me before I've already figured it out myself. That's not a flaw. That's a feature. But it's also exhausting when the system keeps making me prove it.

Here's what I've come to: the problem isn't that men are involved. The problem is when involvement becomes ownership. When "I support this" quietly becomes "I run this." When the balance tips so far that the people the work is for become guests at their own table.

Real partnership looks different. It's not a man running the women's sports workshop — it's a man who uses his institutional access to get women in the room to run it. It's not a male executive signing off on the initiative from the top — it's him asking "who should actually own this?" and then stepping back while someone answers.

Because connection — truly seeing people for who they are, what they know, what they've lived — that's the whole thing. And it requires you to ask: who is already right here?

We are right here.

Practicing Real, Not Perfect

Here's what I know about myself after all of it: I may mess up. I may not know something. But I will never be too humble to be authentic about it. I'm not a perfectionist and I never will be. But I will always be upfront. Always human first.

That's what I'm asking for in these spaces too. Not perfection. Not a man who's done all the right training and read all the right books and married someone with PCOS. Just someone who shows up human first. Who sees me as human first. Who doesn't need me to perform warmth or softness or gratitude just to earn the right to lead.

We don't need perfect allies. We need honest ones.

Tomorrow, being real not perfect may look like you…

1. Asking the question out loud. Before roles get assigned or agendas get set, ask: "Who should actually be leading this?" Not rhetorically. Literally. Then sit with the answer even if it's uncomfortable.

2. Noticing who's already in the room. Before you volunteer, sign off, or take the mic — look around. Is there someone right there whose lived experience makes them the more obvious choice? If yes, your job is to back them, not replace them.

3. Telling the truth without apologizing for it. If you're a woman in these spaces — you are allowed to say the job is hard, exhausting, and unappreciated. You are allowed to say "I should be leading this." You don't have to dress it up or sand the edges down. That's not a complaint. That's just being honest.

We don't need perfect systems. We need ones actually built around the people they claim to serve.

I'll start. Will you?

Lauren Young is the Executive Director of the Vermont Principals' Association and founder of The GRL Initiative. She writes and speaks about millennial leadership, equity, and what it actually looks like to lead out loud.