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WE ARE LOOKING FOR JUDGES! FILL OUT THIS FORM.

Hi all,

We are excited to welcome you to DebateHer’s first ever invitational, an all-women’s debate tournament dedicated to empowering female voices. This tournament is run by women, judged by women, and debated by women.

IMPORTANT DETAILS:

• Location: Online

• Date: January 24th, 2026

• Fee: $10 per competitor. We want to be transparent: $4 per entry will go directly toward Tabroom’s online hosting service, and the remaining proceeds are donated to a women’s empowerment charity, helping extend our mission beyond just debate.

• Payment details coming out soon.

• Judging: We will provide free judging for both divisions! Judges are highly trained women who have years of debate experience. If you have a female coach or ex-debater who is willing to judge, please have them fill out the volunteer judging form.

• Topic: We will be using the Jan-Feb LD topic provided by the NSDA and standard LD times. (6-3-7-3-4-6-3)

• Eligibility: We open this tournament to all middle schoolers who identify as women! Anyone can compete in the varsity division, but the novice division is only for first-year debaters.

VOLUNTEER TO JUDGE!

High-quality judging is provided! But if you are an experienced female coach, ex-debater etc who would like to judge, please fill out thisform

Schedule in PST (tentative):

9:00 AM – 10:15 AM Preliminary Round 1

10:45 AM – 12:00 PM Preliminary Round 2

12:15 PM – 1:15 PM Lunch Break

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM Preliminary Round 3

3:00 PM – 4:15 PM Preliminary Round 4

5:00 PM – 6:15 PM Elim Round 1

7:15 PM – 8:30 PM Elim Round 2

8:30 – 9:00 Awards

Why DebateHer?

We know the numbers. Female-female teams are 17% less likely to win and females are 30.4% more likely to leave debate than their male counterparts. Women who drop out of debate cite a multitude of reasons. To name a few, pointedly rude comments from judges. Ballots that critique their appearance or voice. Rounds where boys laugh and talk over them, only to be praised for being more “confident” and “commanding.”

For too many women, these reasons are why they quit the activity. Women in debate all around the world have faced a number of these issues. We’re creating a space where they can speak without fear of judgment. All of our judges are well trained and many of them have experienced sexism in debate, meaning they understand how to give real ballots. You will get to compete against and meet other female debaters. This tournament tries to remove some of the bias and fear that women may feel when wanting to compete.

What about men?

When we first introduced the idea of this tournament, the first reaction was “Isn’t that sexist?” It’s a fair question.

But the answer is no.

Men will always have a space in debate. Men will always have opportunities at other tournaments. This tournament doesn’t try to take that away from them. It creates opportunities for women who don’t feel safe or supported in traditional debate tournaments.

This tournament is designed specifically to remove the biases that womenface. Just like there are women’s sports teams, DebateHer exists to support a group that is disadvantaged. Sexism is when someone is treated unfairly because of their gender. DebateHer is doing the opposite and correcting that.

HER*

For simplicity purposes, anytime we refer to her, female, women, girls, etc, we are referring to any non cisgender men.

Questions?

Finally, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out using the contacts found on Tabroom.