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Female athletes are now forfeiting competitions rather than risk the unfairness and danger of competing against biological males.
Women and girls across the country have asked politicians and athletic organizations, including the NCAA, to protect the integrity of their sports as well as their privacy and safety by banning males from women’s sports — only to receive blatant disregard, censorship, and threats.
When some states have passed laws to protect women and girls, activist judges step in and claim the laws are unconstitutional or provide carveouts.
This only shows that to those in power, the feelings of males who identify as female matter more than the rights of women.
Up until recently, few women have been willing to stand up to the intimidation by universities, politicians, and angry social media mobs, choosing instead to self-censor.
But now, some are starting to stand up, and since courage is contagious, more and more women are also speaking out and joining their movement.
It takes more than talk, though — it also takes action. And that is what is happening in collegiate and high school sports as women are girls have devised a way to unify and call attention to the gross injustice of allowing males to invade their bathrooms, locker rooms, and lodgings and to dominate their sports: forfeiting.
Over the last several weeks, for instance, five college women’s volleyball teams have forfeited their matches against California’s San Jose State University (SJSU), a team that has an athlete who is reportedly a biological male named Blaire Fleming.
It’s a PR disaster for sports leagues that have thrived on telling women to keep quiet and suck it up when a male enters their locker room, injures them in competition, or steals their chance at victory.
Southern Utah, Boise State, University of Wyoming, and Utah State have all forfeited their games against SJSU.
On Saturday, the University of Nevada became the fifth to forfeit their match against the Spartans. Nevada’s forfeiture is even more risky, however. Due to the state’s 2022 Equal Rights Amendment which added gender identity as a protected class in the state’s constitution, the university says it is not legally allowed to officially forfeit the match due to the SJSU player’s gender identity.
Nevada’s players had to demand their right to not play in the game.
Team captain Sia Liilii said the team had meetings to discuss whether they would play and took a team vote in which the “vast majority” of players “voted to stand in solidarity with the teams that forfeited.”
On October 14, the players sent a letter to the university, which stated,
“We demand that our right to safety and fair competition on the court be upheld. We refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes.”
As such, the game, which was scheduled to take place in Reno as a home game for Nevada, was moved to San Jose. This is because the SJSU team had to be present at the game in order to receive a victory from a forfeiture and also because Nevada can’t cancel the game.
Nevada has stated that none of its players will face discipline for choosing not to play.
This decision brings SJSU’s record to 12-3 with 8 games to play before the conference tournament. Two of those games are against Wyoming and Boise State, which means that SJSU will likely end the season with at least 14 wins.
The Nevada players say that what they are doing is more important than their own dreams.
“We are risking our main goal, which is a Mountain West championship,” Liilii stated, who broke down in tears when announcing that they were sitting out the game. “A team is a group that bands together to reach a common goal, and that is the purpose of our spot on the team. No one wants to lose and put that at risk, but this is bigger than wins and losses. It is the future of women’s sports.”
The SJSU issue showcases the many ways that the push to allow men to participate in women’s sports is infringing on all manner of rights. In their game against the Air Force Academy on October 19, for example, officials could be seen on video refusing to allow a fan to wear a shirt reading, “Keep Women’s Sports Female.” They claimed that the message was “political” and insisted that their decision to ban the shirt would somehow ensure the “safety” of players and fans.
The fan also claims that no signs were allowed at the game, a change from usual policy.
It is yet another case where those opposed to males playing in the women’s category are censored and dismissed.
If that wasn’t enough drama, San Jose State’s captain, Brooke Slusser, has joined a lawsuit demanding the NCAA bar men from women’s sports.
The courage of these women is catching, though. On October 1, five girls on the Hillsboro-Deering High School girls’ soccer team refused to compete in a match due to a biological male playing for the other team. The boy plays for Kearsarge Regional High School, a New Hampshire school that is violating a state law signed by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu that bans males from girls’ sports. The Kearsarge School Board voted to defy the law.
The male athlete already gained headlines earlier this year when he won at the state finals in girls’ high jump.
As a mother of one of the girls who chose to sit out the game explained it, “This isn’t about transgenderism. This is about biology for us and the increased physical risk when playing a full contact sport against the opposing sex.”
Taking a somewhat different approach are golfers in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) who sent a letter demanding that male player Hailey Davidson be banned from competing with women.
In the signed letter, 275 LPGA golfers stated,
“We all know there can be no equal athletic opportunity for women without a separate female golf category. Yet, the Ladies Professional Golf Association continues to propagate a policy that allows male athletes to qualify, compete and win in women’s golf, even as several national and international governing bodies of sport and state legislatures increasingly reject these unjust and inequitable policies that harm female athletes.”
So far the letter hasn’t solicited a ban as Davidson was allowed to compete last week for a chance to qualify for the LPGA tour. Davidson, who surgically transitioned in 2021, has been defiant in his determination to compete in women’s golf.
“I will never understand athletes who blame a transgender competitor on their own athletic failures,” he said on Instagram. “If you don’t take accountability for your failures then you will never actually be good enough to make it.”
It isn’t the women’s failures, however, that are stealing their chances at reaching their goals. Time after time, women and girls have missed out on victories or their right to stand on the podium because a male, sometimes more than one male, who has a biological advantage over his fellow competitors, places ahead of them.
Placing the blame on women and girls for the decisions of others is reprehensible, especially since many of these males couldn’t make the cut when they competed against other males.
Women and girls should never have been forced to change in locker rooms with males, been exposed to an undressed man and forced to hide in bathroom stalls and broom closets to avoid being ogled by a man.
Women and girls should never have been forced to compete against men who through their greater size, strength, and speed are a danger to the women they compete against.
Women and girls should never have been forced to watch helplessly as all their hard work and skill is overcome by a male whose advantage allows him to easily claim victory.
It isn’t women and girls who should have to forfeit matches to protect the integrity of their sport.
Teams and schools with biological males are the ones who are cheating, so why should they be rewarded with victories?
If athletic governing bodies and politicians really cared about women, their sports, and their rights, they would not subject them to the humiliation of being forced to share a locker room with or to compete against men.
But they don’t care. They care about pushing transgenderism. They care about the feelings of men, many of whom desperately need someone to help them address their confusion and mental health problems.
I would never profess to know how a woman or young girl should handle such a situation, but it seems obvious that if women and girls don’t stand up for themselves — whether that be by appealing to school administrators, speaking out in public, advocating for laws to protect women, filing or joining a lawsuit, protesting, or forfeiting games — very few others will.
For those who have risked their athletic careers and taken abuse by stepping into the public debate and refusing to compete, you are heroes. You are standing up for yourselves, but just as importantly, you are standing up for women and girls everywhere. One day, hopefully, your courage and sacrifice will have a positive impact and you’ll help rescue women’s sports.
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