On Monday, Idaho became the first state to enact a law protecting equal opportunities for female athletes by using biological sex to determine participation in women’s sports. Though critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union say there is “no data” supporting the law, simple research clearly shows such claims to be false.
Underlying the storied and well-accepted existence of dividing sports based on sex is the basic biological fact that men and women are different and that males have numerous physical features that give them unfair advantages over women in sports.
Recognizing this, Idaho enacted the Fairness for Women in Sports Act, HB 500, to preserve women’s sports and strengthen the protections for female athletes provided by Title IX. When participation is based on gender identity instead of biological sex, women lose, leaving us not with men’s and women’s sports, but with men’s and co-ed sports.
This has already happened in Connecticut track and field, harming a great multitude of girls, including high school senior Chelsea Mitchell. Four separate times, Mitchell was the fastest girl in a state championship race, yet she left the track heartbroken. Why? Because despite being the fastest girl, Mitchell didn’t receive those gold medals. The gold medals were taken by males.
Mitchell isn’t the only one, and that’s why Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of Mitchell and two other female athletes. In Connecticut track and field, two males have taken more than 85 opportunities to compete at higher levels of competition in the last three years that should have gone to girls. These same males have also won 15 championship titles that previously belonged to nine different girls.
This is clearly unfair. In men’s sports, male athletes do not have the burden of facing competitors fundamentally different than those who possess numerous unfair advantages. Why should female athletes face this burden and be denied equal athletic opportunities?
Without HB 500, males who identified as females would be permitted to compete in women’s sports in Idaho, leaving Idaho girls vulnerable to the same injustice that harmed girls, such as Mitchell in Connecticut. Idaho legislators are protecting their daughters and granddaughters by ensuring that situation isn’t replicated in their state.
Opponents of HB 500, such as the ACLU, claim “allowing trans girls to compete in girls’ sports doesn’t hurt anyone,” and that “being transgender does not give girls who are trans an inherent advantage over girls who are not.”
Mitchell and many Connecticut girls would disagree with the first claim, and the second claim has been widely rejected as false as well.
U.S. Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ross holds the women’s world record in the 400-meter sprint with a time of 48.70 seconds. Yet, in 2017 alone, more than 5,000 males beat that time, including many high school boys. In fact, top-performing boys under 18 have consistently posted results better than the women’s world record times.
Perhaps realizing this, the ACLU has attempted to make its argument more plausible by supporting policies that allow males to compete in women’s sports if they take drugs to decrease their testosterone levels. But this still fails to resolve the problem.
First, such policies allow males to have testosterone levels higher than those of the average female, thus failing to even address the single factor at which they are aimed. For example, the International Olympic Committee’s policy was criticized last year in the Journal of Medical Ethics because it allows males to maintain testosterone levels more than five times greater than those of the average female. We shouldn’t need people with PhDs to tell us such rules are incredibly unfair, but this is precisely what the scientists concluded.
Even more importantly, testosterone is only one part of this equation. Males have numerous physiological advantages over girls, including larger lung capacity, greater bone density, greater muscle mass, and different hip structure, just to name a few. Further, harmful hormone blockers and so-called sex reassignment procedures do not remove these advantages.
Opponents of HB 500 have failed to make persuasive scientific arguments supporting their desired policies. Idaho has provided female athletes the level playing field they deserve, and other states would be wise to follow suit. Otherwise, they will learn Connecticut’s lesson the hard way, and our nation’s daughters will continue to pay the price.
Ryan Everson is a communication integrity specialist with Alliance Defending Freedom (@AllianceDefends).
