A female high school athlete said on Tuesday that having to compete with men on the field crushes the dreams of women athletes.
Grace, a soccer and softball player, spoke out in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday as the justices heard arguments about whether federal anti-discrimination laws should apply to “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
Grace, a high school junior, said, “sports have always been a critical part of my life.” With her parents’ support, she grew to become a competitive athlete.
She spoke as activists yelled, “Go home, homophobe!”
“I believed that when they told me if I worked hard enough, I could do anything,” she said to the crowds, “that being a girl isn’t a limitation, that if she believes she can, she will.”
Soccer, Grace said, “taught me discipline, the rewards that come with a hard work ethic, and, most importantly, it’s taught me what leadership looks like.”
But, Grace added that, after spending hours of training and practice and giving up social activities in order to compete with other top-level athletes, “You make it to the field and you see a high school boy across from you. Not as a coach, not as an assistant, but as a player.”
“It’s confusing,” she asserted. “Your entire team’s focus and motivation is lost and defeated before you even start.”
Grace said that her team’s spirit of “Yes, we can!” was quickly replaced by “Why try?”
She explained that when the boy’s hitting ability gave the opposing team an edge of a couple of runs, her team of female athletes could not recover and ended up losing.
Grace observed how allowing biological men to play women’s sports is defeating the goal of an “equal playing field” federal law is supposed to protect. She said many female athletes who have to compete against males will lose out on sports scholarships to colleges.
A recent study in Sweden has shown that biological males who claim to be transgender women still retained considerable advantages over biological females in strength and muscle mass, even after a full year of hormone therapy.
“Despite the robust increases in muscle mass and strength in [transgender men], the [transgender women] were still stronger and had more muscle mass following 12 months of treatment,” the researchers said. “These findings add new knowledge that could be relevant when evaluating transwomen’s eligibility to compete in the women’s category of athletic competitions.”
In another study, researchers concluded that male athletes who claim to be female hold an “intolerable” advantage over biological female athletes.
Three professors — two in bioethics and one in physiology — noted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is allowing “transgender women” to compete against biological females if their testosterone is below 10 nmol/L. However, even that level is “significantly higher” than that of biological females, they asserted.
The researchers also stated that “indirect effects of testosterone will not be altered by hormone therapy.”
“For example, hormone therapy will not alter bone structure, lung volume or heart size of the transwoman athlete, especially if she transitions postpuberty, so natural advantages including joint articulation, stroke volume and maximal oxygen uptake will be maintained,” they explained.
“We conclude that the advantage to transwomen afforded by the IOC guidelines is an intolerable unfairness,” state the professors.