There is an ancient Chinese curse that translates to “may you live in interesting times.” Certainly, one can argue that we are living in just such “interesting” times. Contributing to the times is the full out assault on women’s sports.
If anyone said twenty years ago that biological males would be allowed on female teams, compete against females – even change alongside females in their locker rooms, they would have been laughed out of the room. Yet, this is a reality in the year 2024. Simply put, this has been disastrous for female athletes on so many levels.
First, it denies deserving female athletes an opportunity to play organized sports, Every time a roster spot is filled by a male athlete, it is one less place for a female athlete. For a multitude of reasons, female sports have always existed in the shadow of the more established, higher profile male-dominated sports teams. This results in less teams and less positions for female athletes to begin with. Now those already diminished opportunities are further decreased by the presence of male athletes on female teams.
Second, any grade school student knows there are tremendous physiological differences between men and women. On average, males are taller, heavier, faster, stronger with greater bone density and muscle mass. This gives men a built-in advantage over women competitors that is both unfair and dangerous. Unfair, because it will dilute comparatively rare scholarship opportunities for females who will lose out to male athletes. Dangerous because of the propensity for serious injury to female competitors at the hands of male athletes. There are a growing number of women who have sustained serious injuries from competition with male athletes. Recently, a high school field hockey player sustained serious facial injuries when she was hit with a shot from a male opponent. In another case, a female volleyball player was knocked unconscious with a concussion from a spiked ball at the hands of a male opponent. Injuries such as these will happen more and more as long as this practice is allowed.
Third and probably most important, it denies female athletes the right to reap the rewards of years of dedicated hard work, practice, and competition. How often have we seen males who were poor or mediocre athletes at best become champions when competing against women? Perhaps the best-known case is swimmer William Thomas, a strapping 6’2” young man and a perennial loser when competing against other men who finished first when competing against women. His participation took away the first-place finish that rightfully belonged to a female athlete.
The solution to this is really quite simple – allow biological males to play on men’s teams and biological females to play on women’s teams. An individual can pose as anyone they want; that is their prerogative, and it must be protected. However, when it comes to team and competitive sports, we must deal in realities which acknowledges the physical truth of differences between male and female athletes that give an inherent, unfair advantage to male athletes and threaten female athletes with serious injury and lost opportunities.
I am proud to be a co-sponsor of a bill which would prohibit biological males from competing on female teams and against females in individual competitive sports such as swimming and track. This would not impact novice teams such as tee ball baseball, it would just apply to age groups where physiological differences are a factor.
Women have come too far and achieved way too much in organized sports to have that progress quickly eroded by an illogical, absurd policy based on emotion, rather than sound, immutable scientific fact.
