A conservative public policy women’s organization last week filed a federal civil rights complaint against the University of Pennsylvania for its inclusion of a transgender swimmer on the university’s women’s swim team.
Prior to the NCAA Division 1 women’s swimming and diving championships held March 16–19 in Atlanta, Concerned Women for America filed a formal complaint March 16 under Title IX with the U.S. Department of Education against what it calls Penn’s refusal “to protect the rights of college female athletes under federal law.”
The university allowed a transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, to compete on the women’s swim team this season, igniting a firestorm throughout the athletic world.
Thomas, a biological male, competed three years on Penn’s men’s swim team before transitioning to a female during the 2019–2021 season. Thomas returned to the women’s team for the 2021–2022 season and has dominated the women’s field, setting several pool and meet records.
On March 17, Thomas took first place in the women’s 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA Championship in Atlanta. Thomas finished fifth in the 200-yard freestyle and eighth in the 100-yard freestyle.
In the 500-yard freestyle, Thomas finished 1.75 seconds ahead of Emma Weyant, a freshman at the University of Virginia who won a silver medal in the 400-meter individual medley at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021. Thomas defeated two other Olympians in the race. Erica Sullivan (Texas) came in third, and Brooke Forde (Stanford), also a silver medalist in Tokyo, came in fourth.
Title IX protections
Save Women’s Sports, an organization that advocates biology-based eligibility standards for participation in female sports, held a press conference in front of the swimming venue, the McAuley Aquatic Center at Georgia Tech on March 17. The organization’s founder, Beth Stelzer, said the group’s presence at the event was to show the female swimmers “they matter.”
The complaint by CWA asserts “Thomas is anatomically/biologically a male who should not be eligible to compete in women’s sports, depriving anatomically/biologically female athletes of the opportunities afforded to them by law (Title IX).”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program that receives funding from the federal government. Title IX is widely credited with increasing opportunities for female athletes at all levels.
Critics of allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports say the practice is a direct assault on the protections established under Title IX.
The CWA complaint acknowledges “every student’s right to learn in a safe environment free from unlawful discrimination,” including students who experience gender dysphoria. But, the complaint continues, “it also includes female students, who make up over 50% of post-secondary students. … To allow a male-bodied athlete to displace female student-athletes in the women’s category based on inevitable biological advantages is a gross violation of Title IX.”
In a statement, CWA president and CEO Penny Nance said, “The future of women’s sports is at risk and the equal rights of female athletes are being infringed.
“Any school that defies federal civil rights law by denying women equal opportunities in athletic programs, forcing women to compete against athletes who are biologically male must be held accountable.”
Concerns about fairness
Writing in a 2020 blog post for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Josh Wester, associate pastor of ministry strategy and community outreach at Redemption Church in Saraland, emphasized that opposition to policies that favor transgender athletes is not about opposing the athletes themselves.
“Christians believe every person is created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect (Gen. 1:27),” he wrote. “Saying that biological males shouldn’t compete against biological females is not a backhanded way of insulting those who are transgender; it’s about promoting fairness and equality. It is true, of course, that Christians reject the ideology behind transgenderism and that we believe any attempt to escape the reality of one’s biological sex is mistaken. But this is not about that. It’s about reversing a policy where everyone loses.
“It is immoral to deny young women the opportunity to compete in fair and equal contests because of disadvantages created by novel social policy,” Wester wrote.
In 2021, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law requiring all Alabama athletes in K–12 public school to compete in sports based on the gender they were assigned at birth. The NCAA Board of Governors earlier this year declined to make a definitive statement on collegiate transgender athletes, instead leaving their status up to each sport’s governing body.
Resources
Click here to read the ERLC’s resource, “5 facts about transgenderism.”
Click here to read other resources from the ERLC regarding transgenderism.
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