Sarah Barker has been blowing the whistle on boys playing in girls sports for years and joined Liz Collin on her podcast.
In addition to being a coach, Barker is also a journalist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Runners World, Women’s Running, and can also be found on Substack.
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Barker spoke with Collin about Title IX violations related to boys competing in girls’ sports, as the Minnesota Department of Education has just a few days left to fix Title IX violations or face “imminent enforcement” from the federal government.
“I’m surprised it’s taken this long. Title IX is fairly straightforward. It was passed in 1972. It was an inclusion measure for girls that the only way girls were going to have equal opportunity in sports because of the sex differences between males and females was to have teams separated by sex,” Barker explained.
She also pointed out that “Minnesota and many other states have been signed on the dotted line. They took the federal money and have been for 10 years. So it should not come as a surprise that there’s consequences for not abiding by Title IX.”
In response, some school boards are stepping up, urging state leaders to comply with Title IX.
NEW: Forest Lake school board urges Minnesota Dept of Ed to immediately comply with Title IX writing “failure to correct these violations directly threatens our schools’ ability to serve our students and communities.”
Federal action is expected this week if changes aren’t made. pic.twitter.com/9HDva7u9ki
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) October 5, 2025
Concerns with the ‘Coaching HER’ program
Along with Title IX violations, Barker also explained the involvement of the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports and the Coaching HER program.
What began as a partnership with Nike Inc. a few years ago seems to be something much different, according to Barker.
In speaking about the program, Barker said, “It purports to be about keeping girls in sports, which is a legitimate problem. The Tucker Center went out and interviewed thousands of girls. They found that among many, many reasons that girls drop out of sports, maybe the top two are issues with body image and concerns about their skill level in sports, but not mentioned at all was gender, their coaches’ gender bias, or outdated stereotypes.”
“Yet, the Coaching HER program is entirely focused on blaming coaches. The Tucker Center created this Coaching HER program as a training, as a re-education program for coaches, blaming the coach, the coaches’ gender bias and outdated stereotypes for girls dropping out of sports, yet their own research does not support this,” Barker pointed out.
“It is not about retaining girls at all because they have ignored what girls want and they have gone the opposite direction by inviting boys who identify as girls into girls’ sports,” Barker added.
In further explaining the Coaching HER program, Barker said, “It’s actually an indoctrination program for coaches into gender ideology to normalize males in girls’ sports … In fact, by encouraging and gaslighting girls and coaches into accepting boys into their sports, this just adds to another reason that girls might drop out of sports.”
“It’s disturbing, it’s anti-girl, it’s anti-reality. And the truly concerning thing is that it was developed here in Minnesota, but it’s very well funded and it’s been rolled out worldwide, globally,” Barker said.
In her Substack article, Coaching HER is Evil, Barker goes into further detail about the issues the program poses for girls’ sports.
When Collin asked Barker about what she hopes will happen now that the feds have given the state an ultimatum, Barker said, “If women do not have sex-based rights, they have no rights. They have zero rights. That’s what I would hope, that we would go to sex-based sports and everyone enjoy the benefits of sports.”
Alpha News reached out to the Tucker Center about Barker’s research on the Coaching HER program but did not receive a response.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning investigative reporter, news anchor, and producer who cares about Minnesota. She is the producer of The Fall of Minneapolis and Minnesota v We the People documentary films, and author of the Amazon best-selling book, They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and The Death of George Floyd. Her work has prompted important state laws. Yet perhaps most of all, Liz has been giving a voice to the truth—and helping others tell their stories—for more than 20 years.
Dr. JC Chaix
Dr. JC Chaix is an editor, educator, and an expert in media studies. He wrote and directed the Alpha News documentary "The Fall of Minneapolis" and "Minnesota v We the People."
