Republicans in New Hampshire have been defending girls’ sports. But we have a Democrat-majority legislature beholden to the identity politics totem. They want boys competing in girls and women’s athletics while still climbing to be the party of women.
Related: Men are Dominating Women’s Sports
But if anyone can claim to be a woman, or not, at will, you can’t claim to be the party of women because there’s no such thing. You are the party of feeling like a woman. And while there’s nothing wrong with feeling like a woman (man’s shirt-tight skirts, oh-oh-oh-oh!), doing so to outcompete biological women is wrong.
The state of Idaho is the first to recognize the scientific reality. Biological men have a distinct physical advantage that will deny women athletes not just fair competition but opportunities, scholarships, and educations.
Representative Barbara Ehardt, the sponsor of the bill, said she began working on it 20 months ago in an effort to “protect opportunities for girls and women.”
“We physically cannot compete against biological boys, we just cannot, and once those opportunities are lost, they are gone, you cannot get those back,” Representative Ehardt, a former college basketball player and N.C.A.A. Division I women’s basketball coach, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “This could literally tear teams and communities apart.”
New Hampshire’s proposed law (HB1251) would require a cheek swap to test the athlete. In Idaho, someone would need to file a claim to be adjudicated. The result could be any number of tests or exams to determine biological sex at birth. The entire point is(of course) that male athletes are born with a natural advantage that neither surgery nor chemical therapy necessarily removes. Men who were b or c string participants can become a-level athletes competing against girls and women.
Lawsuits are percolating on that very point. Biological girls in Connecticut were denied the opportunity to compete or scholarships to college because two boys competing as girls ranked higher in their competition, knocking them out of contention.
Idaho also passed legislation preventing transgenders from changing the sex on their birth certificate.
