The Erosion of Women's Sports on the 50th Anniversary of Title IX

On 23 June, The Chronicle of Higher Education hosted a forum on Title IX, with Executive Editor Liz McMillen, Victoria Jackson, ASU Prof., Candice Storey Lee, Vanderbilt Chancellor for Athletics, Ellen Staurowsky, Ithaca College Prof., and Gabrielle Tenzer, Partner, Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP. This is my response:

Dear Colleagues,

You expressed the perspective that the purpose of athletics in academic?settings is "to fulfill the full purpose of students' humanity."?

That is not merely disingenuous and superficial, an abstract statement that does not reflect the reality of athletics;?it is a bald?lie.?

• We keep score or use a stopwatch for a reason; to measure skill, ability, and compare teams and individuals against one another. The physical advantage conferred to biological males to the consistent detriment of women by the empirical characteristic of physiological sex is so extraordinary it must be a consideration for fairness and in many sports, females' physical safety.?
• The?top 50 highest paid?public employees are basketball and?football coaches. They are not paid merely to provide an experience of teamwork and "fulfill the full purpose of students' humanity;" they are paid to?win games.?
• Students are not awarded $2.7B in athletic scholarships merely "to fulfill the full purpose of their humanity;"?they are expected to excel,?win, and in some cases, enhance the university's name recognition.??
• Athletes like Dr. Storey Lee do not merely?participate?in athletics; they?compete?to experience the triumph of victory,?to know that they performed better than others who have the physiological characteristic of sex in common, since the physiological category of male has an advantage.?

The awareness that one has little-to-no chance of winning a competition against a male body is demoralizing. In my home state of Connecticut, male bodies won 17 championships playing as pretend-girls against biological girls. Surely you have heard the interviews with these girls expressing their anger and awareness of the gross injustice done in the name of "inclusion" to privilege gender dysphoric?boys over the sex-based rights of girls. This is?their?tragic experience of sport and of adults making contrary-to-fact and horrifically unjust decisions that disadvantage females. This is not "fulfilling the full purpose of their humanity," unless that purpose is to consistently bow to the whims of males. The evidence is so plain, so clear, yet the misplaced compassion for gender dysphoric?boys takes precedence over female rights yet again,?buttressed by complicit female decision-makers like you.??

Some?60% of Americans polled?in 2022?stated that biological male athletes should not compete against females on the college level; 15% had no opinion, likely to be in the "unsure" category in your poll.?The rampant groupthink, Orwellian thought police, and clouds of abstraction surrounding the ivory tower can erode one's ability to accept the obvious observable reality. Check that.?

As?Abigail Shrier wrote, "Even if allowing biological boys to join girls’ teams means girls can’t win, isn't it still worth trying out for the team? Actually, no—even in sports that involve no contact and little injury risk, like running or tennis [....] It’s the profound and glaring injustice of it: the spectacular records and achievements that Jackie Joyner, Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph would never have achieved had the world pitted their bodies against men....Decades of women’s achievement and opportunity rolled back by executive fiat" --and by women like you, who support this outrageous incursion.??

Just how big is this performance gap between male bodies?and?female bodies?

• Karsten Braasch, a male tennis player (and cigarette smoker) ranked 230th in the world, beat the Williams sisters in their prime in straight sets.?
• The fastest female sprinter in the world is American runner Allyson Felix, a woman with more gold medals than Usain Bolt. Her lifetime best for the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds. Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high-school boys in the U.S. alone could beat it.?

The?UK Sports Council?finally agreed that?testosterone levels are an insufficient basis for bodies that have undergone male puberty to compete against female bodies.?Male bodies are physiologically different from female bodies, regardless of testosterone suppression. This is an empirical biological fact.?

Short list of male advantages in sport vs. females with references:?

Upper body strength Lassek+Gaulin 2009,?Taller bodies Alexander et al. 1979,?Lower body fat advantage in vertical jump height, Abidin + Adam, 2013,?Heavier bodies Loomba-Albrecht+Styne 2009,?Higher basal metabolic rates Garn and Clark 1953,?Faster reaction times Der+Deary 2006?Stronger hand grip, Khan, 2015,?Faster mental rotation+spatial visualization Voyer et al. 1995,?More accurate throwing Jardine+Martin 1983,?More accurate blocking of thrown objects Watson+Kimura 1989,?More interest in the practice of combat skills Gibbons et al. 1997,??Stronger bones Schoenau et al. 2001,?Greater bone density specifically in the arms Wells 2007,?Easier heat dissipation Burse 1979,?More hemoglobin in the blood Waalen +Beutler 2001,?Higher muscle-to-fat ratio Loomba-Albrecht + Styne 2009,?Decreased Q angle in the femur means less pressure on knees and relieve the need to rotate, Carreiro, 2009,?Larger hearts Tanner 1970,?Higher systolic blood pressure Tanner 1970,?Broader shoulders Brues 1959; Tanner 1989,?Larger sweat capacity Burse 1979,?Larger circulating blood volume Burse 1979,?Greater resistance to dehydration Burse 1979,?Tolerance for risk+dangerous activities Wilson et al. 2009,?Faster sensory frame shifting Cadieux et al. 2010,?Thicker skin Shuster et al. 1975,?Larger?lung?capacity Gursoy 2010,?Greater use of physical +homicidal aggression Daly+Wilson 1988.

Our cultural conditioning as women?teaches us?to elevate male "feelings" to the detriment of women and our long struggles and hard-fought rights,?to exhibit compassion even when misplaced,?and, too often,?emphasize emotion over empiricism.?This was on full display in yesterday's discussion of Title IX, rights?based on biological sex.?Only FEMALES are disadvantaged in competition by your perspective, never a male. It is imperative that male bodies not compete against female bodies. Period. An "open" category may be introduced for those men and women who desire such a competition; that's all to the good.?

What is a woman? A woman is an adult human female, female being the sex that gives birth, that produces female gametes (eggs) and typically has XX chromosomes in every cell. This is empirical and immutable. All sexually dimorphic animals, including p rimates other than humans, instinctively recognize that sexes are different. Medicine is discovering more and more differences between the sexes in metabolism, reactions to medications and medical protocols, brain structures (there is no?trans brain), diseases, etc. COVID-19 negatively impacts males much more than females, for example. Reason, logic, and the replicable results of empirical science lead to agreement and peaceful resolution to conflict; emotion-based opinion leads to chaos, irresolvable disharmony, and gross injustice.?

Title IX was and continues to be based on biological sex, not the imaginary and?theoretical construct?of gender.?Women have fought long and hard for our rights, suffrage, private and secure single-sex spaces, and so much more that we have not yet accomplished. Your support of physiological male participation in women's sports turns back the clock and erodes our rights.?There is disparate impact and gross harm to the girls consistently disadvantaged by these male bodies in competition.??

Examine the facts of?empirical science, not social science. Why are you, a woman, supporting this??

Women’s rights are consistently cancelled for?male advantage.??

Who will voice objection and the voice of reason??Will it be you?

This is your chance to make a stand, to be a courageous woman in the tradition of Elizabeth?Cady Stanton, Abigail Adams, Sojourner Truth, Alice Coachman, and Ida B. Wells.?

BE A COURAGEOUS WOMAN AND STAND UP FOR OUR RIGHTS!