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More Than 300 Female Athletes, Olympians Urge NCAA To Protect Women’s Sports
The Federalist ^ | July 30. 2020 | Elle Reynolds

Posted on 07/30/2020 8:13:54 AM PDT by Kaslin

Under the NCAA’s current rules, I’m concerned that we will soon effectively have men’s sports and co-ed sports — without any dedicated category for females,' said Madison Kenyon, a college athlete who's lost to transgender athletes.


More than 300 high-profile female athletes signed a letter released Wednesday asking the National College Athletic Association Board of Governors to preserve a “fair and level playing field” for women’s sports.

“True athletic parity for women demands that women’s sports be protected for biological females,” the letter said. “Protecting the integrity of women’s sports has, for decades, played an integral role in remedying past discrimination against women and empowering them to achieve their full athletic potential.”

The letter urges the NCAA not to boycott Idaho over passing the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which requires students to compete in sports based on their biological sex. The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged Idaho’s law in a lawsuit representing transgender athlete Lindsay Hecox, and attempted to start a boycott of the state.

The athletes who signed the letter — including world-class competitors as well as college athletes — insisted the issue was one of fairness, not politics. “Fairness for female athletes should not be a political or partisan issue,” they said. “We athletes have diverse views on many topics, but stand united on this fact: protecting the integrity of women’s sports is pro-woman, pro-fairness, and consistent with the purpose and promise of Title IX.”

Madison Kenyon and Mary Kate Marshall are cross country and track and field athletes at Idaho State University who signed the letter, and have lost to transgender competitors at the NCAA Big Sky Conference. Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, they’ve filed a motion supporting the Idaho law in the Hecox case.

“Allowing males to enter women’s sports eliminates the connection between an athlete’s effort and her success,” Kenyon said. “Under the NCAA’s current rules, I’m concerned that we will soon effectively have men’s sports and co-ed sports — without any dedicated category for females only.”

Meanwhile, a poll by Just The News and Scott Rasmussen last month found that three times as many Americans believed biological males should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports as thought they should.

“Activists like the ACLU are completely out of touch with what the vast majority of Americans actually want and believe about what’s fair to female athletes,” said Christiana Holcomb, an attorney from Alliance Defending Freedom who is representing the young women.

Those activists organizations calling for boycotts of Idaho “are just representing the voices that are the loudest,” Marshall added. “That’s why it’s so important that we’re standing up and representing ourselves.”

Although Kenyon and Marshall are speaking out publicly on the issue, Holcomb said she’s heard from female athletes who are afraid to speak out or have faced retaliation for their beliefs. “They’re afraid of the backlash that they might get on social media, of being labeled a transphobe or a hater,” she said, “everything except what they actually are: which is courageous, for standing up for women’s rights and women’s opportunity.”

Marshall also noted that at competitions, teams have to share locker rooms and lodging. “We have to share pretty much everything,” she said. While she hasn’t personally shared a facility with a transgender athlete, the inclusion of biological males on female teams raises concerns about shared showers and sleeping arrangements for traveling teams.

Chelsea Mitchell is another track athlete who’s suing to protect women’s sports in Connecticut. In high school, racing against transgender athletes, she lost out on four state championship titles and two All-New-England awards. “Going into college, I want a better playing field,” she said. “I want it to be more fair.”

“Anytime you allow a biological male into their category and allow them to take away spots and push female athletes down in the rankings, that is discrimination against female athletes because Title IX was designed to give them those opportunities,” Holcomb added. “There’s a lot of loud activist organizations out there that are striving to tell the American public that this is the way that sports should look and telling female athletes that they need to be silent.”

The letter’s signers also include cyclist Jennifer Wagner-Assali, who came in third place behind transgender competitor Rachel McKinnon in the UCI Masters Track World Championship in 2018, and marathon swimmer Sandra Bucha-Kerscher, a pioneer for women’s opportunities in sports during the 1970s. It’s also signed by Cynthia Monteleone, an award-winning track runner and high school track coach whose daughter is a track athlete.

Since Hecox and the ACLU filed their lawsuit, the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated have profiled Hecox, but the Sports Illustrated article hardly mentioned Kenyon and Marshall and the Post didn’t mention them at all.

The activist groups pushing against laws like Idaho’s, Holcomb says, are ultimately ascribing to a gender ideology that’s anti-science. “Biology is not bigotry,” she said. “Biology is the whole reason that we have separate sports for women, so that girls can compete and showcase their talents, earn their championship titles and their medals.”

“We hope the NCAA chooses to side with female athletes over activists.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: aclu; adf; athletes; feminism; idaho; ncaa
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1 posted on 07/30/2020 8:13:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I’ll bet the vast majority of these athletes vote Rat.


2 posted on 07/30/2020 8:15:19 AM PDT by Seruzawa (TANSTAAFL!)
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To: Kaslin

Quit voting Rat.


3 posted on 07/30/2020 8:16:10 AM PDT by DownInFlames (Galsd)
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To: Seruzawa
I’ll bet the vast majority of these athletes vote Rat.

Of course they do. Isn't it funny???

4 posted on 07/30/2020 8:16:12 AM PDT by Living Free in NH
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To: Kaslin

All to the crazy and perverted the Left surrenders,
All to the crazy and perverted they fight to give,
They honor and trust those who are crazy,
And for the approval of perverts daily live.


5 posted on 07/30/2020 8:17:52 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: Kaslin

Too late, girls. You broke it, you bought it.

Your woke leftist activism and voting has done you in.

The chickens have come home to roost.


6 posted on 07/30/2020 8:18:06 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Father in Heaven, I trust in Your love.)
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To: Kaslin
No. Make them suffer the consequences of their liberalism. Make them see the logical conclusion of the gender/transgender insanity.

Just like Portland and Seattle residents suffering from the riots, residents who perpetually vote RAT. Let them feel the logical conclusion of their treason.

7 posted on 07/30/2020 8:18:12 AM PDT by LouAvul (Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Psalms 9:20)
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To: Kaslin

No sympathy at all for these women...you reap what you sow.

Sit back and enjoy the Libtards eating their own.


8 posted on 07/30/2020 8:18:16 AM PDT by Herodes
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To: Kaslin

>>Under the NCAA’s current rules, I’m concerned that we will soon effectively have men’s sports and co-ed sports — without any dedicated category for females,’ said Madison Kenyon, a college athlete who’s lost to transgender athletes.<<

Cue the “whahh whahh” mute trumpet sound.

Woke left feminazissm in the dust! HAHA!! Other than tennis, volleyball and diving I won’t miss lesbian sports in the slightest.


9 posted on 07/30/2020 8:18:17 AM PDT by freedumb2003 ("Do not mistake activity for achievement." - John Wooden)
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To: Kaslin

Hahahaha. Reap, sew.


10 posted on 07/30/2020 8:19:55 AM PDT by reagandemocrat (Liberate California)
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To: Kaslin
A new take on the Cancel Culture.

Leftism ruins everything.

11 posted on 07/30/2020 8:20:24 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Kaslin

The fems and freaks Amber Heard your bed. Now you gotta sleep in it.


12 posted on 07/30/2020 8:20:36 AM PDT by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: reagandemocrat

Yup. These nags need to be inclusive! Stop being homophobic ladies, embrace perversity. I mean diversity.


13 posted on 07/30/2020 8:21:29 AM PDT by Professional
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To: Kaslin

Rodman would kill it in the WNBA.


14 posted on 07/30/2020 8:22:21 AM PDT by angmo (America invented the Moon, so we could go there.)
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To: Seruzawa

But... they would claim they are “moderates”, they believe all the other liberal crap, just not THIS crap.


15 posted on 07/30/2020 8:23:00 AM PDT by Professional
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To: Kaslin

Sorry ladies you’ll be losing the race to the woman with a beard now lol.


16 posted on 07/30/2020 8:24:05 AM PDT by hercuroc
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To: Kaslin

How many men’s sports were cancelled under Title IX? Screw them.


17 posted on 07/30/2020 8:25:14 AM PDT by angmo (America invented the Moon, so we could go there.)
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To: Kaslin

If the “matching” men’s sport gets cut, the women will too.

That’s the way equality and Title nine works.


18 posted on 07/30/2020 8:26:33 AM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: Kaslin

Tagline...


19 posted on 07/30/2020 8:27:34 AM PDT by Migraine ( Liberalism is great (until it happens to YOU).)
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To: Kaslin

HERE’S HOW THEY DID IT EVEN TO THEIR OWN THROUGH REDISTRICTING WHO VOTED AGAINST TRANSGENDER SPORTS
Democrats weren’t happy with his votes against abortion and on being the only democrat to vote NO on allowing men to to call themselves a women and compete with women in college sports.
Those who live in Chicago already voted at their local public library. But in the reshaped 3rd Congressional district Daniel Lipinski lost because of redistricting. Which had previously included adjacent Chicago city wards to his 23rd in a district that dealt exclusively with city issues such as a subway L service and the Stevenson Expressway Wards which were reliable Dan’s father William O Lipinski supporters. But since most had areas with hispanic last names those areas were redistricted and assigned to Gutieriez’s district. Those results are posted below which actually tear up the concept of a neighborhood and pit people against each other by using division.
http://www.theusmat.com/mdwbea.htm


20 posted on 07/30/2020 8:28:05 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (mosesdapoet aka L.J.Keslin posting here for the record hoping somebody might read and pass around)
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