A group of Congressional Republicans have signed onto a letter calling on officials of the Mountain West Conference college sports organization to ban males who identify as women from playing on women’s teams.
The letter, signed by 13 GOP lawmakers in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, notes that Title IX was created more than 50 years ago to “even the playing field for women.” But with the incursion of transgender players, the officials say they have “serious concerns” about safety and fairness in college sports, according to Fox News.
“Since its implementation, women have participated in safer and fairer competition — but recent events have shown this is at risk. Recently, members of your conference have forfeited games, risking their competitive standings to ensure the safety of their female athletes,” the letter says.
“The Mountain West Conference’s failure to prohibit biological males from competing in women’s sports is unfair to the women and girls who have worked tirelessly to compete at the collegiate level,” the letter continued. “We applaud the bravery of these female athletes and the universities in our home states for taking a stand to preserve Title IX when the Mountain West Conference would not.”
The lawmakers insist that allowing men who identify as women to play alongside natural-born women represents an “injustice.”
“Life isn’t fair, but sports should be,” they said. “We urge you to address these inequities in women’s sports in the Mountain West Conference immediately, and we look forward to working with you to support women in collegiate sports.”
Mountain West Conference is currently in the midst of a major controversy after allowing San Jose State University to include transgender player Blaire Fleming on the school’s volleyball team.
Members of the SJSU team allege that the school hid from them the fact that Fleming was born a male. And at least one student is now suing the school for including the trans player on the team.
In addition, five colleges have refused to play against SJSU over the school’s inclusion of Fleming and have forfeited games against SJSU.
Elsewhere, the NCAA is also being sued by several groups over its policy of allowing transgender players to play as women.
The issue is riling schools outside of college, as well. Several high school teams have also risen up to forfeit games against opposing teams that have included a trans player.
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