My wife and I recently celebrated the birth of our first child. I may win the championship title for PROUDEST DAD—our little girl has already stolen my heart. I’m sure you know the feeling if you have children.
Even though it’s years away, I look forward spending my weekend days in folding chairs and on bleachers, watching my little girl learn to swing a bat at tee-ball and chase the checkered soccer ball around the field. Maybe she will even find a sport for which she exudes passion and decides to play in high school or college.
This week at the Supreme Court, oral arguments were given in a case (Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC) that could have disastrous implications for girls sports everywhere.
The specifics of the case deal with a transgender funeral home employee that filed a complaint with the EEOC after he was fired for violating company dress policy by dressing like a woman at funerals and meetings with grieving clients.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the funeral home director, redefining “sex” (a protected class under federal law) to include “gender identity.” If this redefinition is affirmed by the Supreme Court, unequal treatment on the basis of a person’s gender identity will now be prohibited under federal law, unmooring the concept of “sex” from any objective biological basis.
So how does this relate to girls’ sports? Under this scientifically indefensible interpretation of “sex” and “gender,” any effort to prevent biological boys from performing in girls’ sports would constitute legally prohibited “discrimination.”
Ask any student athlete, high school coach, or parent—allowing biological men to perform in girls’ sports unfairly puts biological girls at a competitive disadvantage. The size, strength, bone structure, lung volume, and heart supply of the average male far outpaces even the most elite female athletes, even after the biological male undergoes hormone therapy.
Allowing biological boys to participate in girls’ sports deprives our girls of opportunities for slots on teams, victories, and scholarships. Biological boys are already beginning to win athletic championships in many states. Here in Idaho, a biological male can play in girls’ high school sports after undergoing hormone treatment for one year.
Family Policy Alliance of Idaho calls on the state legislature to fix the loophole allowing boys to play in girls’ sports. Legislation protecting fairness in sports would save girls’ sports for my daughter and yours.
Until then, we will keep monitoring the Harris Funeral Homes case playing out in the Supreme Court. Please be praying for a positive outcome to this case.
