Hitting where it hurts

It never should have come to this. But organizations and government officials who refuse to do the right thing have left female athletes no choice.

Since April, at all levels of sports, from middle school through the Olympics, female athletes have declined to compete in events where their opponents include boys or men. They’ve done it to send a message that the people in charge—be they sports governing bodies, appellate court justices, or whoever else—simply refuse to understand: Safety and fairness must trump inclusion when it comes to girls and women’s sports.

We’ve seen it in college volleyball. Four Mountain West Conference schools have forfeited matches against San José State, which has a male player on its roster. And roughly a dozen Mountain West players, including one from San José State, have sued the conference, seeking an injunction to disqualify SJSU from the conference tournament, which begins next week.

We’ve seen it at the Olympics. Italian boxer Angela Carini didn’t even last a full minute in her bout against Algeria’s Imane Khelif before throwing in the towel. Olympic officials allowed Khelif to compete and win a gold medal even though the International Boxing Association disqualified the Algerian from its women’s world championships in 2023.

Khelif reportedly suffers from “differences in sex development,” an extremely rare medical condition in which a person outwardly appears to be one sex based on genitalia but has chromosomes and hormones associated with the other. Still, Khelif’s body has XY chromosomes, and a medical report that a French news outlet leaked earlier this month reportedly shows that Khelif is, in fact, a man.

We’ve seen it at the high school level, most recently, in California, where a Christian High school forfeited a state girls volleyball playoff match against a school with a male player. “Standing for Biblical truth means more than the outcome of a game,” the school reportedly wrote in a letter to parents.

Volleyball isn’t the only sport in which forfeits are occurring. In Massachusetts, a high school field hockey team that had a player lose several teeth after a slap shot by a male opponent struck her in the face during a playoff match last year, forfeited a regular season contest this fall to make sure the same thing didn’t happen again. In New Hampshire, a high school forfeited a match against a school whose roster includes a 6-foot male goalkeeper, who also made history in February by becoming the first boy to win a state girls high jump title.

The goalie’s presence on the field happened to violate a state law that prohibits male athletes in the fifth grade through high school from competing on girls teams. The Kearsarge School Board responded this summer by voting to ignore the law.

Lastly, we’ve seen it at the middle school level. In April, female shot putters in West Virginia protested a federal appellate court’s decision that allowed a male to compete against them at their county’s track and field championships. Each girl entered the shot put ring, walked to the toe board at the front edge, hoisted the heavy metal ball to her shoulder, then turned and left without making a throw.

Sports fans can only shake their heads and wonder how we got here. However, there’s no shortage of powerful people to point fingers at.

We’re here because judges in Idaho, Connecticut, and other places wrongfully decided that excluding male athletes who self-identify as females from competing in girls and women’s interscholastic sports would violate Title IX, a federal law designed to create educational opportunities specifically for real women and girls. We’re here because legislators, college officials, and high school sports governing bodies in so-called “blue states”—and even some governors in red states—decided that making delusional males feel included is more important than ensuring fairness and safety for girls and women.

We’re here because the University of Pennsylvania subjected female swimmers to emotional blackmail so a male swimmer who was mediocre at best against men could become a first-team All-American in three women’s events—which was celebrated by the NCAA and ESPN.

Perhaps worst of all, though, we’re here because anyone who dares speak out against the insanity of letting male athletes become champions in girls and women’s sports suffers for doing so.

Ask Melissa Batie-Smoose, the associate head volleyball coach at San José State, who was suspended for speaking out against her own university.

Ask the West Virginia shot-putters, whose school board treated them as a bunch of bratty, catty, mean girls, banning them from future competition. The shot-putters had to go to court to win back the right to compete for their schools.

Ask two former Oregon high school coaches: one who lost his track and field coaching job because he dared ask the Oregon School Activities Association to create an open division for transgender athletes at state meets and another who coached girls tennis and could no longer participate in the farce of letting boys compete as “girls.”

Ask Carini, who recanted her comments about Khelif in the ring less than 24 hours after forfeiting to him—no doubt due to facing backlash.

And ask Riley Gaines, the former University of Kentucky swimmer who is now America’s foremost advocate for keeping male athletes out of girls and women’s sports. Gaines spent three hours barricaded in a room on the San Francisco State University campus because her views angered college students there.

“This isn’t about transgenderism,” said Heather Thyng, the coach of the girls soccer team in New Hampshire. “This is about biology for [girls and women] and the increased physical risk when playing a full contact sport against the opposing sex.”

It’s time for the people in charge to start listening.