Female NCAA Division 1 Athlete: ‘Inclusion’ Should Not Create ‘Exclusion of Biological Women’

Female NCAA athlete Linnea Saltz said during a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday that the concept of “inclusion” should not lead to the “exclusion of biological women.”

Saltz discussed how President Joe Biden’s executive order providing special protections for gender identity and sexual orientation and his call for the swift passage of the Equality Act would eviscerate women’s sports.

The NCAA Division 1 athlete called out those who claim keeping women’s and girls’ sports for biological females is discriminatory and not “inclusive”:

There’s no part of me that doesn’t want to be inclusive. Obviously I’m looking for proposed solutions that would create inclusion for everybody, but not at the exclusion of biological women. We can’t just have … we use this like trigger word is inclusion, but people don’t realize that by being inclusive in that sense, it is exclusionary to people like myself.

Saltz said that, if the Equality Act becomes law, she believes women will be “watching their own sports from the sidelines.”

She explained:

We’re no longer going to be wanting to compete in sports, where we don’t feel as if we’re competing on a level playing field. Some of the reason that I decided to speak out about something like this is because fairness in women’s sports is so important to me, and if we’re allowing biological males that possess physiological advantages over biological females to compete in the female category, we’re no longer going to be interested in competing and being a part of the sports which is such a big part of my identity … as well as … other females across the nation as well. And so, if we continue to allow this to happen, things like Title IX are just going to be reversed and women aren’t going to want to be in competitive sports anymore and it’s just going to completely go against what we stand for, and so it’s kind of upsetting to see.

Saltz said that she and other women athletes continually make sacrifices in their lives to perform at their best in their sport:

I work full time now. And so, I’m waking up at 5:45 in the morning, I’m going to practice for two hours. I’m then driving to work where I work all day and then I’m doing online school because that’s the world we live in right now. And I’m spending the amount of time that a typical person would at work, but I’m also doing the same thing just because I want to be as good as I can at my sport. And so, to know that I’m sacrificing things that other students don’t have to sacrifice, like as silly as it sounds, never having a spring break. That’s a time where I’m either training or competing. I’m not going on vacations with friends. I’m not doing any of these things because I’m sacrificing as much time as I can because I’m dedicated to being the best that I can in my sport.

“And, so, I feel as if women shouldn’t have to be forced to compete against people that have a different, like, biological advantage, like I said, because it’s just going to make us not motivated and not want to — we’re not going to want to stay in the sport that we love so much,” she said.

Terry Schilling, executive director of American Principles Project (APP), moderated the CPAC panel. He explained last week how the Equality Act would make permanent in federal law Biden’s executive order on his first day as president regarding “Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.”

Schilling said in a statement:

Of course, this has been their goal for a long time, and we know by now the very terrible consequences which will occur if the ‘Equality’ Act passes. Female athletes will be forced to compete against biological males; women will be forced to share private spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, and shelters with men; and religious charities will be coerced into violating their beliefs or else be shut down.

Schilling warned that, while the “Equality” Act sounds virtuous, “every member of Congress should recognize” that a vote in favor of it “is a vote against women, particularly women and girl athletes, as well as a vote against Americans of faith.”

The Equality Act has already passed the U.S. House, with three Republicans voting along with Democrats.

Saltz said she is actively speaking out about the effects of gender ideology on women’s sports.

“I just want to be able to be an advocate for other girls that are, like you said, being the silent majority, because we’re afraid to speak out about it because of the negative repercussions we may have,” she explained, adding, however, that she knows, as she has more conversations, there are actually more people “on our side.”

American Conservative Union