US Defangs Policy Protecting Female Sports
Title IX gutted by sex self-identification
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on Wednesday published a statement to their website which confirms that Title IX — a 1972 amendment prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in education — will also apply to “discrimination on the basis of gender identity”. US-based women’s rights organization Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) published an explanation of what this means: sports intended for women and girls, in schools and universities, will be pressured to include any male-bodied person who declares themselves to be something other than male; those same people will also be granted access to girls’ and women’s locker rooms and restrooms.
According to WoLF, this is not yet an official policy: “the Department still anticipates engaging in the rulemaking process although they have not committed to a timeline on this. However, they are treating this as a ‘clarification’ of their position, and inviting students to begin submitting complaints.”
Including a sex self-identification stipulation alongside a protection against sex discrimination is antithetical. If a person can declare their own sex, then sex is meaningless. If reality is subjective and not objective, then there is no basis on which to define or defend reality. Self-identification is always implemented in a manner which trumps material sex, and thus the two are inherently at odds.
This is compounded by the enforcement of false language. US mainstream media outlets, such as ABC News, have begun referring to biological males as “trans females”; PBS, reporting on the announcement, referred to boys as “transgender girls”, and when referring to the decision, described the OCR as having “expanded sex protections.” This couldn’t be further from the truth — the guidance, if made law, would demolish sex protections for females. Meanwhile, girls are being expected to refer to themselves as “cis”, a subcategory of their own sex. While it is not yet clear if the OCR will attempt to prohibit “misgendering” (accurately identifying sex), it is already strongly socially discouraged, rendering women and girls unable to describe the unfairness of the situations they are placed in when, for example, forced to compete in sports against males.
Two recent studies illustrate how trans-identifying males retain a physical advantage even after up to three years of “hormone therapy”, or the administration of wrong-sex hormones and testosterone suppressors.
According to Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage:
“We have shown that under testosterone suppression regimes typically used in clinical settings, and which comfortably exceed the requirements of sports federations for inclusion of transgender women in female sports categories by reducing testosterone levels to well below the upper tolerated limit, evidence for loss of the male performance advantage, established by testosterone at puberty and translating in elite athletes to a 10–50% performance advantage, is lacking. Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected.”
Another study, How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation, says:
“In transwomen, hormone therapy rapidly reduces Hgb to levels seen in cisgender women. In contrast, hormone therapy decreases strength, LBM and muscle area, yet values remain above that observed in cisgender women, even after 36 months. These findings suggest that strength may be well preserved in transwomen during the first 3 years of hormone therapy.”
The OCR clarification comes just one week after a brave 14 year-old girl in Virginia, Jolene Grover, berated her schoolboard for a proposed policy that would allow boys to enter girls’ locker rooms, saying, “Your policies are dangerous and rooted in sexism.”
Women and girls who participate in sports, aside from improved health, also are less likely to suffer from depression and report increased confidence. High school girls who participate in sports are less likely to experience an unintended pregnancy, and are more likely to graduate. The OCR is actively ignoring the many women and girls who have spoken out against their exclusion from their own sports, and in doing so, implicitly show contempt for their experiences and wishes.
While a high school track athlete, Selina Soule missed out on qualifying for New England’s regionals as the top two places were awarded to boys who identify as transgender.
“The first race that I competed in against a transgender athlete was during my freshman year. Once the gun went off, the two transgender athletes took off flying and left all of us girls in the dust. I knew right then and there that some girls would be missing out on great opportunities to succeed, and that women could be completely eradicated from their own sports.”
But Soule wasn’t the only one impacted. Chelsea Mitchell spoke out in an article for USA Today about losing four state titles and numerous other awards to trans-identified males. Yet after the story ran, USA Today editors changed her words and printed an apology for her “hurtful language”.
Powerlifter Beth Stelzer in April testified in favor of a North Carolina bill called the “Save Women’s Sports Act”. She has been lobbying against sex self-identification in sports alongside the Save Women’s Sports coalition, organized by Linda Blade.
(You can support her advocacy on Patreon or donate to SWS.)
Additionally, several prominent athletes have spoken out for fairness in women’s sports, including tennis star Martina Navratilova and swimmer Sharron Davies.
It is absurd that males are already being allowed to compete in women’s and girls’ sports categories given that we have known for centuries that males possess an advantage in the arena of physical strength. The onus should not be on researchers to prove what has already been documented. The onus should not be on women to defend rights they already fought for, and won. Those who seek to erode the rights of the female sex ought to be burdened with proving why it is that the removal of these hard-won boundaries will not negatively impact women and girls. It becomes clear that the gender movement is a male entitlement power play by the very fact that they are able to successfully make demands without any proof of their claims. The gender movement is rooted in sexism and essentialist notions of women as stereotypes. It is anti-science, and it is anti-woman.
Finally, it must be pointed out that “gender identity” is being enshrined in US law before women have been recognized as deserving of equal rights in the Constitution. The Equal Rights Amendment, originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman and introduced in Congress in 1923, has been stalled for nearly a century. It simply states:
“Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Sec. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Sec. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”
The relative swiftness with which the US government has taken up the cause of protecting a self-declared “gender identity” over the best interests of women and girls, while the ERA languished for decades, is a powerful juxtaposition that illustrates how gender identity ideology upholds the feelings of males over the reality of females.
The strongest argument I've read underlining the absurdity of transwomen (men, originally) competing against women in sports, and yet the Olympics are allowing some of these transwomen to represent women in their chosen activities. Women are not a sub-category but one half of the fundamental division of human beings, and transwomen should only compete against other transwomen.
Every advancement of gender ideology makes my blood boil (more). But comes with a painful benefit: this movement has sailed so far due to obscurity from the general public, such advancements reveal it to mainstream attention. Hence make opposition more possible.