Mary Frances Fouts
Mary Frances Fouts told the Pachyderm Club on Monday that women's sports “should remain women.”
Ms. Fouts, newly elected chair of the Hamilton County Young Republicans Committee and communications director for County Mayor Weston Wamp, added: “It's disgusting. It's immoral.”
Colleges and student-athletes are anticipating full implementation of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules allowing transgender athletes to participate in women's sports starting August 1, based on various documents requested by local sports governing bodies. We are making preparations for this.
Fouts, who played four years in Division I soccer at Tennessee Tech, said allowing transgender athletes to participate in women's sports would “disenfranchise women” and “kill women's sports.” .
“Nobody really likes the NCAA,” Fouts said, vowing to do everything in her power “to keep women's sports feminine.”
Public education:
Audience members expressed concern that Hamilton County Public Schools would succumb to left-wing policies.
County Commissioner Steve Highlander, a former school board chairman, also told the group to support Republican school board candidates as the Aug. 1 election approaches.
“If we don't, we're going to be in a world of hurt,” he said.
Former Rep. Zach Wamp encouraged the group to “lean in” to public education. He said he supports Gov. Bill Lee's policy of providing support and options to “every parent in the state.”
Wamp told defeated Republican candidates to stay engaged and run again, or “the cesspool will start.”
Fouts said he believes his Catholic upbringing in Nashville gave him a “strong moral compass” that he relies on in this “post-Christian era.” She said teamwork, similar to her college's football team, drew her to the Republican Party.
She began her career in Chattanooga as an anchor for Local 3 News. She said her coverage of the Black Lives Matter “riot” on Frazier Avenue in 2020 showed her that “facts don't matter” to news organizations, who dismissed the rally as peaceful. He said it was advertised as a protest.
“I think they were a mob,” Fouts said. She said protesters had “eye-to-eye” with police officers and were shouting expletives and inflammatory chants “on camera.”
“That's kind of what turned me away from journalism,” she said.
She wonders how long a news anchor who has become a household name can stay at Local 3 News since Chattanooga's evolution into a first-market media town has drawn young, far-left Democratic journalists to Local 3 News. She said she had doubts.
After Wamp County Mayor is elected in 2022, he asked Fouts to join the team.
“I am so grateful to have taken on this job,” she said.
“He’s a convicted felon and he’s principled,” she said of the county manager, adding that she would not remove unpopular items from the vote. “He would rather lose than just retreat from the situation,” she said.
Ms. Fouts is also responsible for the county's Hamilton Aggregate Report, which compiles data on crime, substance abuse and homelessness in the county. These statistics help drive county policy.
Fouts said 68 percent of unmarried American women vote Democratic, and that Republicans should “bring more people like me to the table.”
“We need more young conservative voices,” she says.
The next Young Republicans Conference will be held in late March or early April. Fouts said the group has about 60 members. Membership is open to people between the ages of 18 and 40.
