After watching biological males win their athletic events, fouryoung women in Connecticut stood up to the policy that cost them titles, opportunities, and potential scholarships. This week, a federal judge dismissed their case challenging the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s policy allowing biological males to compete in female athletics. Rather than weigh the merits of the case, the judge dismissed it as no longer relevant because the two male athletes who had been competing have since graduated. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, the four athletes are appealing the ruling.
In 2017, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) began to allow biological males who identify as female to compete in female athletic events. Very quickly, two male athletes, Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood began to dominate in girls’ track and field, and young women watched by the sidelines as their athletic events were won by young men. Alliance Defending Freedom has noted that two male athletes had, between the two of them, taken 15 women’s state championship titles and more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher-level competitions from female track athletes in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 seasons.
In the past week, more than 600 Minnesota Family Council supporters contacted their state senators asking them to support school choice and girls’ sports, and those actions had results! On Thursday the Minnesota Senate approved a bipartisan education budget bill that empowers families with school choice options and protects athletic opportunities for female athletes in Minnesota!
The bill includes the language from Senator Carrie Ruud’s Save Women’s Sports bill that would preserve women’s sports by ensuring that biological males are not allowed to compete in female athletics and clarifies that any school that allows male athletes to compete on girls’ sports teams is in violation of Title IX and existing Minnesota laws that protect athletic opportunities for women and girls.
The bill would also create Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) that would equip parents to pursue educational opportunities that fit their family’s values and their children’s educational needs. Under the ESA program, when a parent chooses to withdraw their child from public school, the child’s share of state education assistance would be deposited into a savings account that parents would be able to use for tuition and fees at a different school, online learning, instructional material, or other educational expenses.
These provisions are good news for Minnesota’s families! They recognize that parents are the ones who are ultimately responsible for their children’s education and equip them to pursue an education that is the best fit for their students, and they recognize the biological differences between men and women and preserve fairness and opportunities in light of those differences.
On February 3, the Minnesota Senate Education Policy Committee heard SF 96, the Save Women’s Sports Bill. Under state and federal law, the legislature has a duty to protect female athletes from unfair discriminatory practices throughout the state. SF 96 does just that, resolving misguided policies regarding eligibility for K-12 athletes. Since 2014 organizations and individuals in Minnesota have aggressively asserted that male athletes have a right to play on female sports teams – which is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution as well as federal and state law, specifically protections afforded to students in Title IX. And, based on President Biden’s very first Executive Order, SF 96 is now a necessity if women’s sports are to continue.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation. This order amounts to an attack on biology that will severely affect women and girls. Let’s be clear: any and all forms of discrimination are wrong and we should work toward resolution. However, in the name of equality this executive order discriminates against nearly half of the population – women – by requiring the head of each federal agency, in consultation with the Attorney General, to “revise, suspend, or rescind such agency actions, or promulgate new agency actions, as necessary to fully implement statutes” that contradict current legal protections against sex discrimination.
On Wednesday, Senator Carrie Ruud’s bill to protect girls’ sports here in Minnesota was heard by the Education Finance and Policy Committee. The bill clarifies Title IX and existing Minnesota laws that protect opportunities for girls in sports, stating that a school that allows a male athlete to compete in women’s or girls’ athletic events is in violation of these provisions. Senator Ruud explained that she graduated from high school prior to the passage of Title IX and experienced firsthand the lack of athletic opportunities for young women. “If we continue to allow biological males to play on girls’ sports teams, we will no longer have female athletes and the very thing we fought for… in Title IX will be gone,” she said.
Beth Stelzer, founder of Save Women’s Sports, testified in support of the bill, sharing about her experience competing in USA Powerlifting, which is currently being sued because they did not allow a biological male to compete in the women’s division at the Minnesota State Bench Press Championship in 2019.“Fairness, privacy, and safety for females must be ensured and protected, and like most women, I would never have started my fitness journey if I would have to compete against males. There would have been no point. I’m sure my teenage self would have felt the same way,” Stelzer told the committee.
This week marked 48 yearssince Title IX became law,opening the door for women and girls to have equal opportunitiesto compete in sports. In the time since then there has been a remarkable increasein female involvement in athletics. Now, two in every five girls plays sports, ten times the number that did when Title IX went into effect.In less than 50 years, Title IX has created opportunities for women and girls offering advantages that go far beyond the accolades of the playing field.
Lisa Hoffer is one of those young women.Lisa began playing softball when she was five and basketball when she was seven. An accomplished athlete, she received multiple awards throughout high school, including All Conference Honors in both sports, the ExCEL Award during her junior year, and becoming her high school’s All Time Women’s Leading Scorer in basketball during her senior year. She has gone on to play both sportsat Bethel University where her basketball team qualified for the NCAA tournament this year.
Attorneys helping three high school girls fight to protect girls’ sports in Connecticut are asking a district judge to recuse himself after he forbid them from referring to two biological males as males. In February, three high school girls filed a lawsuit against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, challenging the decision to allow male athletes who identify as female to compete in female sporting events. During the 2018-19 competition season, two male athletes had dominated high school girls track, costing Selina Soule, Alana Smith, and Chelsea Mitchell competitive opportunities and chances at scholarships. Attorneys are asking district judge Robert Chatigny to recuse himself after he informed them that they must refer to the two male athletes as transgender females. According to Chatigny, referring to them as males is inaccurate, inconsistent with science, and “needlessly provocative.” He went on to say, “This isn’t a case involving males who have decided that they want to run in girls’ events. This is a case about girls who say that transgender girls should not be allowed to run in girls’ events.”
The problem with Chatigny’s statement is that this is a case involving males who have decided they want to run in girls’ events. By requiring the attorneys to use the term “transgender females” instead of “males,” Chatigny has already taken a side, and his claim that this is consistent with science is simply not true. Science confirms that men and women are different, and that these differences give male athletes a competitive advantage over female athletes. Men have larger heart and lungs than women, denser bones, and more muscle mass, and hormone therapy does not remove these physiological differences. Asking for these differences to be recognized in order to protect girls’ sports is not discriminatory, but refusing to protect competitive opportunities for women and girls will spell the end of women’s sports.
