Last year, a Vermont high school snowboard coach was fired for stating that boys tend to have an advantage over girls in sports. David Bloch made the comments in an attempt to defuse a heated argument between two students about whether it was fair to let trans-identifying male athletes compete against girls.
This month, almost a year later, Vermont school officials agreed to pay the former coach $75,000 in damages, acknowledging that he, in fact, “did not violate a state-mandated policy prohibiting harassment, hazing, and bullying.”
Regardless of how a person identifies, physical realities mean that boys have a competitive advantage over girls in sports. According to one study, even men who have taken estrogen for two years retained competitive advantage.
Bloch’s lawyer, Tyson Langhofer of the Alliance Defending Freedom, said that the settlement isn’t about the money. It’s about “stand[ing] up” for the right to say what’s true. After all, Langhofer said, “No teacher should ever lose their job for speaking the truth.”
Copyright 2024 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
A Nassau County, New York, decision to protect fairness in women’s sports is sparking controversy.
On February 22, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman signed an executive order preventing male athletes from competing in female athletics at county recreational facilities.
The decision helps ensure biological males don’t compete in women’s or girls’ athletics at county-run ballparks and sports facilities.
However, last week former decathlon Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner spoke in favor of the county order, saying that letting men compete against women would “ruin women’s sports” for years to come. Jenner is a biological male who identifies as female and legally changed his name from Bruce to Caitlyn in 2015.
Across the board, policymakers and sporting leagues have taken steps to protect fairness in women’s sports.
That is part of the reason states like Arkansas, Texas, West Virginia, and Ohio have enacted laws that uphold fairness in women’s sports.
In 2021 Arkansas passed Act 461 by Sen. Missy Irvin (R — Mountain View) and Rep. Sonia Barker (R — Smackover) preventing male student athletes from competing against girls in women’s athletics at school. This good law protects fairness in women’s sports in Arkansas.
It’s worth point out that public opinion is shifting on this issue, with more Americans agreeing that athletes ought to compete according to their biological sex rather than their gender identity. Laws and policies preserving fairness in women’s sports reflect public opinion on this issue.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
In a recent article published in Newsweek, Kristen Waggoner described how the federal government is working to remove protections for women’s sports, ironically in the name of equity and justice. When Title IX rules that protect female representation in sports are reinterpreted to privilege males who claim a transgender identity, the original purpose of Title IX is turned on its head.
Twenty years ago, or maybe just 10, if anyone were to predict that women and girls would be denied privacy, scholarship money, and the fair chance to compete in sports, the culprits would have been assumed to be the advocates of a Handmaid’s Tale-style, Right-wing patriarchy. But this move is being championed by those on the Left because they are committed to a worldview in which identity is constructed and the freedom to self-express is the highest good.
But the freedom from reality is not freedom at all, certainly not the freedom promised to women and girls.
Copyright 2024 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
