“Those two biological males would dominate the field, leaving us girls to compete for third place and beyond. No matter how hard we’d train, and how hard we pushed ourselves, they beat us time and time again. We elite female athletes don’t give up a normal high school experience just for participation trophies. We race to win,” she said.
“This isn’t about self-expression, this is about our right – a woman’s right – to win,” Soule declared.
“During my junior year, I was denied the chance to compete at the regional New England championships. I missed advancing to the next level of competition at the 55-meter dash by just two spots, two spots that were taken by biological males,” she recalled.
“It was frustrating, heartbreaking, and demoralizing to be sidelined in my own sport,” Soule said. She said she reviewed the bill DeSantis would sign. “All I can say, on behalf of all female athletes, is, ‘Thank you, governor.'”
After Soule’s speech, Gov. DeSantis explained that corporations and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) will not force the State of Florida to bend to the transgender agenda on sports. He noted the pressure campaigns that many activists have launched in states like South Dakota, where Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) vetoed a bill protecting women’s sports because it went too far in the eyes of the NCAA.
“When this was going on, you heard different things being said about some of these corporations get all spun up. Some of these organizations say they’re not going to hold events if you do this,” DeSantis noted.
“Let me say very clearly, in Florida, we’re going to do what’s right,” the governor declared. “We’ll stand up to corporations. They are not going to dictate the policies in this state. We will stand up to groups like the NCAA who think that they should be able to dictate the policies in different states. Not here, not ever.”
“And so we won’t be cowed. We will stand strong,” DeSantis added. He declared that even if the price of defending fairness in women’s sports is “that we lose an event or two, I would choose to protect our girls every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
By signing this bill, DeSantis has joined at least five states that have taken strides in defending women’s sports against the transgender agenda. The governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee signed laws protecting fairness in women’s sports, while Noem did issue an executive order with some protections (far fewer than the bill that South Dakota’s legislature passed).
In April, the NCAA Board of Governors warned that the NCAA will only allow colleges to host championships in “locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination.” The board made this warning after explicitly endorsing “a more inclusive path for transgender participation in college sports,” i.e. a path to allow biological males to compete in women’s sports and vice versa.
The NCAA argued that its approach “requires testosterone suppression treatment for transgender women to compete in women’s sports,” following the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) policies. Yet a study in The Journal of Medical Ethics concluded that the IOC’s policies allow biological males who identify as female to maintain a key advantage that constitutes “intolerable unfairness.” Even some suppression of testosterone does not erase a male’s advantages, which begin in the womb.
A study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism concluded that “even after 12 months of hormonal therapy,” a man who identifies as a woman and is taking cross-sex hormones “had an absolute advantage” over female athletes and “will still likely have performance benefits” over women.
DeSantis is right to take this stance, even if it proves somewhat costly. While most of the legislatures and governors standing up to the transgender agenda are Republicans, fairness in women’s sports should not be a partisan issue. It is heartening to see DeSantis not only take this stance but show the backbone to oppose the NCAA.
The pope does his first TV interview and calls people fools... Who did he insult…
The pope does his first TV interview and calls people fools... Who did he insult…