Girls’ Athletics KO’d ?

Amidst the sleet (or a word of your choice) storm of Biden Official Orders, burying us up to our necks, while purposefully freezing our brains in the flurry, you may have missed the one that will seriously impact the future of fair, competitive girls’ athletics, and especially so for individual events like track and field, swimming, golf, etc.

This particular Order has to do with transgender rights, primarily having to do with boys who choose to “identify” as girls.  This administrative edict is aimed at “preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.” “Gender identity,” meaning boys who want to be girls, and who thus must now be allowed to compete against biological girls in athletics, as well as…here it comes…must also be allowed to use girl’s lockers rooms and bathrooms, all in the interest of complete equality, you see.

Given the differing strength and structure of biological males, with appropriate training, this puts similar aged girls at a distinct disadvantage if/when forced to complete against girl-identifiers.  Dreams of top high school (and beyond) female athletes, in terms of competitive victories, college scholarships, Olympic trials, etc., could well be dashed, if forced to compete against males who apparently wish they weren’t.

Interesting, and disturbing, here in an era where apparently equality is the perceived goal, that a sliver-percentage (within the U.S. population) of male-to-female transgender athletes will be afforded a contentious and artificial level playing field, while biological female athletes will, as a consequence, be treated very unfairly, if forced to compete against transgenders.  You wanna be transgender, it’s a free country (thus far), so have at it.  But understand that female fairness is being unreasonably breached when non-biological “girls” are allowed to compete in individual athletic events. If not prohibited, and left to the extreme, it could well lead to the partial or full elimination of girls and women’s sports.

So, what can be done?  Lawsuits can, of course, be filed on the basis of unreasonable violation of biological fairness. Along with that, in an effort to overturn this unfair national edict, and with the political likelihood, today, that federal legislative relief will not happen, we must look to the individual states to deal with this mandated inequality.  One state that has already stepped up to restore that competitive fairness is Montana.  Its House Judiciary Committee has just passed the “Save Women’s Sports Act” that “would bar biological boys from teams or in sports designated for women or girls.”  If passed by the full legislature, and in the name of fairness, it certainly should be, it would apply to all public elementary, middle, and high schools, along with public colleges and universities within the state.  As athletic experts have written: “The evidence is unequivocal that starting in puberty, in every sport except sailing, shooting, and riding, there will always be significant numbers of boys and men who would beat the best girls and women in head-to-head competition.  Claims to the contrary are simply a denial of science.”  The proposed Montana bill states explicitly that: “Athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls may not be open to students of the male sex.”

Whether by court order, federal legislation, and/or legislative efforts by individual states like Montana, it is hoped that corrective measures will be taken now to override the negative impact of this executive edict, and to restore American tradition with the appropriate fairness demanded, so that the playing field for girls’ and women’s athletics can literally be once again leveled, and remain so.

(Administration quote via the washingtontimes.com, Staff, 1-26-21; Montana girls’ sports bill data and quotes via dailywire.com, Hank Berrien, 1-24-21).