When Sandra Bucha entered high school in 1968, she wanted to be a competitive swimmer.\u00a0 But there were no girls\u2019 teams in her state.<\/p>\n
In 1972, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she and her father filed a federal lawsuit against the Illinois High School Association on behalf of girls who wanted to compete in school sports.\u00a0 They lost, in part because the judge noted that males have physical advantages over females, and thus schools had valid reasons for separate athletic competitions.<\/p>\n
That same year, Congress passed Title IX, a law prohibiting sex discrimination by schools receiving federal money, which is almost all of them.\u00a0 Now colleges and schools that field athletic teams have significant numbers of girls\/women\u2019s teams and athletes.<\/p>\n
Although I wish female athletics had been achieved without federal legislation and well before 1972, I\u2019ve always thought providing equal opportunity is a great thing for everybody.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve been proud of America for it.<\/p>\n
Alanna Smith, a sophomore at Danbury High School in Connecticut, is a natural athlete.\u00a0 She\u2019s the daughter of Lee Smith, a Hall of Fame major league pitcher, and her mom was a high-school long-distance runner.\u00a0 One uncle played professional baseball, another professional football, her grandfather was a high-school basketball and football standout, and her twin brother is a three-sport athlete.<\/p>\n
\u201cSports is a huge part of who I am,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cTraining to compete and be my physical and mental best at the starting block is who I am, too.\u00a0 Running with my mom when I was younger taught me how to prepare, train and focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
She won state 100-meter championships in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.\u00a0 She\u2019s proud to have set records and achieved personal goals.\u00a0 But as a high-school freshman, she had to compete against two males who identify as female in the state meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how many hours I trained \u2013 or how hard I worked on endurance, speed and strength \u2013 I had no chance to beat the physical strength of a biological male who previously ran in the men\u2019s division.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt defeated before stepping onto the track. \u2026 It\u2019s not that second or third place isn\u2019t good enough for me if I\u2019ve done my best; it\u2019s just not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two boys have been running girls off the track since 2017, setting 17 individual state meet records with times girls have little hope of ever breaking.\u00a0 Their sheer size and strength has resulted in more than 85 missed opportunities for Connecticut girls even to qualify for the next level of competition, even though neither transgender competitor was a top sprinter as a boy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s simply not fair for anyone born as a boy to compete against girls,\u201d says Alanna.\u00a0 \u201cThat unfairness doesn\u2019t go away because of what someone believes about their gender identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, Alanna and two other female Connecticut high-school athletes filed a federal lawsuit with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom to keep boys out of girls\u2019 competitions.\u00a0 Bucha, now a lawyer, and 300 other current and former female athletes are pursuing similar action at the college level.<\/p>\n
To illustrate the unfairness, the Connecticut suit notes the fastest female sprinter in the world, America\u2019s great Allyson Felix, has more gold medals than Usain Bolt.\u00a0 However, Felix\u2019s lifetime best in the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds.\u00a0 And about 300 American high-school boys beat that time each year.<\/p>\n
Says Bucha about the effect of allowing biological boys in girls\u2019 competitions: \u201cIt isn\u2019t merely the trophies and scholarships and opportunities at stake.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t even all the benefits sports have so long provided to young women \u2013 in self-esteem and health and camaraderie with friends.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t merely that girls who participate in sports tend to earn better grades, that so many Fortune 500 executives were athletes, or that sports force teen girls out of their own heads where they might stew to their own detriment.\u00a0 It\u2019s the profound injustice of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his first day in office, Joe Biden signed an executive order purporting to require that schools receiving federal funding must allow boys self-identifying as girls onto girls\u2019 sports teams \u2013 reversing a Donald Trump policy.\u00a0 Elections have consequences.<\/p>\n
And the ACLU supports Biden\u2019s awful policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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