We often hear how difficult it is for women to get the recognition they deserve. Sometimes it seems as though their hard work isn't rewarded like that of their male counterparts. Remedying this inequity is one reason we have Title IX, a law that protects fair competition for female athletes and allows them to receive the recognition their athletic achievements deserve. But if the Biden administration has its way, that may soon change.
The Biden administration recently proposed changes to Title IX that would give males who identify as females access to female-specific opportunities, like women's sports. We don't have to speculate about how this will impact female athletes. We've seen it happen in Connecticut under a similar policy, and the consequences are devastating.
Starting in 2017, two male athletes began competing in Connecticut girls' high school track. In just three years, these two males broke 17 girls' track meet records, deprived girls of more than 85 opportunities to advance to the next level of competition, and took 15 women's state track championship titles. Four of those state championship titles were earned by my client via Alliance Defending Freedom, Chelsea Mitchell. Four times she was the fastest female in a women's state championship race, and four times she watched that title, honor, and recognition go to a male athlete instead. Over the course of her high school career, Chelsea lost to these males more than 20 times.
These were devastating blows. And Chelsea is just one athlete, in just one state. If the Biden administration makes its proposed changes to Title IX, it will impose Connecticut's misguided policy on all 50 states—and female athletes across the country will find themselves up against almost unbeatable odds.
The Biden administration is ignoring the reality that males are, on average, physically bigger, stronger, and faster than females. The average male has 36 percent more skeletal muscle mass and significantly greater lung capacity than the average female. In sports, these physical advantages give males a 10 to 50 percent performance advantage over comparably fit and trained female athletes. Studies show that no amount of testosterone suppression will level the playing field. Even after 11 months of testosterone suppression, a male powerlifter set multiple world records in women's powerlifting. A male swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania underwent more than two years of testosterone suppression, and then went on to crush the female competition—swimming the 1,650-meter freestyle event 38 seconds faster than the female who took second.
Women's sports are a testing ground where young women learn leadership skills, hard work, and most importantly, that their effort and excellence can pay off. They learn that perseverance matters. They learn that they can win. That explains why more than 90 percent of females who hold C-suite positions played sports, and many of them point to sports as a key part of their growth as leaders.
But when males compete on women's teams, girls learn a different lesson: that no matter how hard they work, they can't win, because the odds are stacked against them. They learn that their opportunities and accomplishments are less important, less deserving of recognition than their male counterparts. That's not what our young women should be hearing from their schools, their states, and their president.
There is nothing quite like a well-earned victory, nothing quite like the experience of standing on the podium and holding up a hard-won first-place trophy. It's too late for Chelsea to have that experience. But she is asking that her records be corrected to show the true story: that she was, four times over, the Connecticut state champion in her sport.
Everyone deserves the right to fair competition, and everyone deserves credit for their accomplishments. That's a lesson Connecticut needs to learn, and the Biden administration should pay attention.
Christiana Kiefer is Senior Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and represents female athletes in Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
