Selina Soule spent years training in the hopes of securing a college scholarship and leaving behind a legacy at her high school by setting new records in track.
But those plans were temporarily put on hold one day at the Connecticut Indoor Track & Field State Championships in 2019 when she placed one spot away from qualifying for the finals and the subsequent opportunity to compete at the New England Regional Championships.
That meant missing a crucial opportunity to compete in front of recruiters and secure financial aid that would help alleviate the heavy burden of the cost of college for her family. Two competitors in that race went on to the New England regionals, with one of them setting a girls’ record for the 55-meter dash and later winning two titles. They now hold 15 state women championship titles and 17 school records.
Who are they? Biological men who identify as women.
Soule enlisted three other young women, all current or former students of high schools in upstate Connecticut, to sue the state’s Interscholastic Athletic Conference for sex discrimination, arguing the inclusion of transgender women denied them nearly 100 opportunities to compete in various athletic competitions during their time in high school.
“It was very frustrating and difficult knowing the outcome of the race before you even step on the line,” said Soule, who is now a Division 1 track athlete at the College of Charleston. “That’s not how it should be in sports. You hope to win, not already knowing the outcome before the meet even comes. It wasn’t only me who felt dispirited. Other girls felt the same.”
Interviews conducted by the Washington Examiner with several young female athletes found unanimous agreement that allowing biological men to compete with women could result in disastrous implications even after high school and college.
According to statistics provided by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, roughly 2% of students earn athletic scholarships to attend colleges and universities. Thanks to Title IX, which was passed as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act in 1972, those financial incentives are now evenly distributed to men and women.
Perhaps not for long. NCAA guidelines for over a decade have allowed biological men to both participate in women’s sports and receive athletic scholarships, should they undergo hormone replacement therapy. A Division I team did not have an openly transgender athlete until 2010, when transgender man Kye Allums came out and continued playing on the George Washington University women’s basketball team.
A CDC survey released in 2019 found that nearly 2% of high school students, which translates to hundreds of thousands of children, identify as transgender, compared to just 0.6% of the adult population, and more than double from when a similar survey was conducted in 2017.
“LGBTQ+ students play sports for the same reasons as anyone else — we want to be a part of team with friends and play the games and sports we love. Being a part of a sport helps LGBTQ+ students in many ways, including countless mental, physical, social, and psychological benefits, but it also can help us feel we belong. Participation helps others who are not LGBTQ+ as well. One of the great things about sports is that our love of the game can bond us together, regardless of any other differences,” transgender advocate Chris Mosier, who was the first out transgender athlete to join a U.S. national team different from his biological sex, told the Washington Examiner. “Having teammates who are different than us, particularly for young people, can help us create stronger communities overall.
In 2011, the NCAA released a guidebook on the topic of transgender athletes and cited their experiences as crucial to its core mission of “diversity, inclusion, and gender-equity.” The report stated that “the assumption that all male-bodied people are taller, stronger, and more highly skilled in a sport than all female-bodied people is not accurate,” despite the fact that decades of research has found that biological men gain physical advantages over women after puberty such as larger hearts, less body fat, and more muscle capacity.
Although the current number of transgender students participating in Division I sports remains unclear as the NCAA does not keep records, the organization is investing in resources for expanding access to transgender athletes. Bolstered by a recent executive order from President Biden that forces schools that accept public funding to allow biological men to compete in women’s sports, civil rights organizations are working to accelerate the integration of transgender individuals into various athletic programs.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which would not comment directly for this story but is a party in lawsuits to force schools to accept biological men on women’s sports teams, pointed the Washington Examiner to statements from the Women’s Sports Foundation calling the transgender debate a “distraction.”
“I’m so grateful for my scholarship. The only reason I’m able to go to the college I go to is because of my athletic scholarship,” said Idaho State track athlete Madi Kenyon, who expressed concern that future generations of women won’t have the same opportunities to earn scholarships like she has. “That’s one of the reasons I want to keep a fair playing field for women. When we get scholarships, we can get further education and jobs. It creates opportunities for women, not just on the athletic field, but all parts of our lives.”
Kenyon, who has testified in support of an Idaho law barring biological men from participating in women’s sports, described a potential future where female college athletes are eventually cut from teams because of poor finishes in races against biological men. She also credited Title IX for helping create “diversity in the workplace” and helping boost female participation in the labor force due to a record number of women now receiving college degrees.
Lawsuits on behalf of biologically female athletes have largely been undertaken by the Alliance for Defending Freedom, a right-wing Christian nonprofit organization dedicated to “free speech & religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and the family, including parental rights.”
“Men and women are different. Biological differences matter in all matters of life. None of the feminist groups were willing to take this on,” said attorney Christiana Holcomb, who is representing Soule and other female athletes in lawsuits across the country. “This is a civil rights violation. It’s a violation of federal law. Title IX was designed to provide equal athletic opportunities. Denying that hurts these girls’ chances of getting college scholarships.”
Both the ADF’s lawsuits and bills from various state legislators barring biological men from competing in women’s sports have caught the attention of Republicans in the House and Senate. During a confirmation hearing for education secretary nominee Miguel Cardona, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky grilled the former Connecticut commissioner of education on the topic.
“Does it bother you that the top 20% of boys running in track meets beat all of the girls in the state and that it would, you know, completely destroy girls’ athletics?” Paul asked. “That girls are being pushed out? [If] they don’t make the finals in the state meet, they don’t get college scholarships? That it’s really detrimental to girls’ sports? Do you worry about having boys running girls’ track meets?”
Although a commitment to transgender rights has been a bedrock of the Democratic National Committee’s platform for two presidential election cycles now, segregating men and women’s sports has garnered the support of some Democrats.
Former Hawaii Rep. and 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate Tulsi Gabbard joined Republicans in Congress shortly before leaving office on a bill outlawing transgender females from participating in women’s sports programs at any federally funded university.
Gabbard called the inclusion of biological men a threat to Title IX and “creating uncertainty, undue hardship, and lost opportunities for female athletes.”
Former Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski, who lost his bid for reelection in March 2020 against his primary challenger Marie Newman, found himself in hot water due to his initial reluctance to support the Equality Act, which would effectively eliminate all sex-specific facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms, or sports teams.
Lipinski, considered a centrist Democrat, was labeled an “anti-LGBT” member of Congress by gay publications like The Advocate before eventually relenting and backing the law.
“Congressman Dan Lipinski’s concerns about the balance between religion and government are a false flag. Religion is an American value that’s treasured in this country — including for the LGBTQ community — and is not compromised in any way by ensuring equal rights and dignity for all people,” Zeke Stokes, chief programs officer at GLAAD, said in a May 2019 statement.
