Transgender Vs. Title IX

Family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Rustin, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that she will fold better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation. Now here's our house to family policy matters Tracy to bedrooms. Thanks for joining us for family policy matters. We have seen an assault recently on games that women have made in the realm of X. This comes as many in our culture seemed determined to allow men and women to self identifies any gender they choose with. This has very serious and far-reaching implications in many areas, but the one will talk about today is the impact it has on the federal law title IX which is intended to level the playing field for women athletes regarding opportunities and dollars spent will recently the North Carolina high school athletic Association Board of Directors approved language that provides a way for North Carolina high school students to compete and events as a gender that does not match their birth certificate. The board justified the change by stating that quote it is the intent that all students are able to compete on a level playing field in a safe, competitive and friendly environment free of discrimination will the group of teenage girl athletes in Connecticut is not happy about how a similar policy is working in their state and they are challenging it in court with the help of alliance defending freedom and were joined today by ADF legal counsel Denise Harley to discuss this specific case and how it fits into the bigger picture of where this philosophy appears to be taking us Denise. Welcome to family policy matters much for having me hide in case there are those out there who don't know or don't remember what is title IX and how does it affect athletic programs in our schools. Nine is a federal law Congress passed in 1972. It was designed to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities in education and athletic. So in the realm of sports what it means is that females get equal opportunities you have to think that they can play on and have facilities that they can use that are set aside for girls and women said that they can engage in the same sort of activities that boys and men have long been able to do tell us about this case in Connecticut. What led ADF to file this title IX complaint against the Connecticut interscholastic athletic conference in Connecticut has a policy for high school athletics that allowed any athlete to compete based on their self identified gender policy became a real problem about three years ago when two biological boys decided that they are identified as girls and wanted to run track against the girl very quickly.

These boys demolished state records. They were first and second in every race.

They competed in and our clients.

The three young ladies tried to come to peaceful reconciliation so their parents started the petition. They tried to engage in dialogue with the state athletic Association administrators and those conversations went nowhere. Despite the obvious fact that girls and boys are different, so that's what got us to this title IX complaint which we filed with the federal government and it had instigated an investigation into Connecticut Connecticut policy under title IX because it is in violation of title IX. So what is the criteria in Connecticut for biological boys to be eligible to compete on girls sports teams is completely subjective.

There is no criteria other than the individual self-professed identification, which really makes no sense at all because a person avoid belief about his gender that cancel out all of the physical advantages that he has over girls interesting.

It seems like allowing biological males to compete on women's sports teams re-creates the exact inequities that title IX was put in place to avoid. Do you agree with that. When we met… Exact argument to the federal government is that this is destroying nearly 50 years of advances for women under title IX women fought long and hard to be given as equal opportunities and to have discrimination eliminated under title IX and some wonderful things have happened.

We've seen all sorts of achievements by female athletes of the growth of youth sports at the collegiate level and even seeing some of those athletes go on to the Olympics and other sports we looked at your for and so to remove that protection for women and girls would be a huge setback and it would completely undermine the exact purpose of title IX, which is why we think this is a pretty slamdunk case.

You know, you're right there have been a lot of gains but it's not like women have achieved parity statistics.

Of course show that men on average are paid quite a bit more than women for similar jobs.

The majority of higher-level management positions are held by men, not to mention the lopsided media attention and compensation and of course that men athletes receive in comparison to women athletes. It's not like we've arrived, but with all of that.

Is it surprising to you that women's rights groups are not being more vocal about this, yet you find a few things in there that are very important one is that these protections are still needed because female athletes are never going to be able to compete fairly against male athletes science and common sense tell us that males are stronger than females. The differences range and muffle five muscle strength, bone density, height, all of these physical advantages that that will never allow a fair competition or an equal competition between males and game old and that's why these girls are entitled to their own level playing field, which is all are asking for. And it's a real shame that we haven't seen women's rights groups speaking up for women here because this is going to mean girls are off the podium and there on the sidelines in their own sports listening to family policy matters weekly radio show and podcast of the most a lot of family policy. This is just one of the many ways since he works to educate citizens across Mr. a lot of about policy issues that impact a lot of families. Our vision is to create a state or nation where God is on religious freedom solutions family strong and why more information about his family and how you can help us to achieve this incredible vision for our state and nation. Visit our website density family.org and see family.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts, and of course our flagship publication family North Carolina magazine. We also look for you to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, so when you think women's rights groups are not speaking that issues of gender confusion, gender, dysphoria, transgender, and some data arrived very quickly and I think that they're very sensitive subject and a hot topic and we've seen businesses and any range of people in society really grappling with how to best address what is a very complicated complex and nuanced issue and so it's not too surprising that people are reluctant to speak up when there's a chance that there would be a social backlash because what we see is that women's rights groups are often working alongside allies with LG BP which includes the transgender and so that's an alliance that I think is important to those groups and they are reluctant to jeopardize that in any way. So North Carolina's new policy is different from Connecticut's. There are some other things that you have to do you have to apply in there certain treatments that you have to undergo.

But how far is far enough in your arguments that you're gonna make on this case. Are you saying that transgender women should never be allowed to participate in women's sports. I think that it's such a complicated issue that it's something we need to have a lot of dialogue and thought toward and if you happen very willing to do that as I know our clients are as well. There is no obvious solution but what we do know is that there is absolutely no long-term study on this, and there's no science showing that any of these proposed solutions are taking hormones for certain amount of time or putting your outward appearance with the opposite sex for certain amount of time.

None of those have been shown to erase the natural physical biological advantages.

The boys have another thing we know is that in the womb as early as nine weeks. Testosterone can be detected in a baby boy so that testosterone is pumping through the system throughout the entire course of a lifetime.

While the boys are practicing and training and build.so it's not something that can be eliminated by taking a round of shots or a year of of doing some sort of therapy. We know that the boys are crushing girls on the playing field. Even those who've gone therapy or have been doing for some time are still absolutely dominating which just shows how unfair it is designed to settled that males and females are different, down to the chromosomal level and just having a cell from one individual can tell you whether they are male or female and that's what we know Denise what you suppose some people think the rights of transgender athletes supersede the legally recognized and protected rights of women frustrating to see these right to class because I think ultimately everyone here is seeking what they feel is the equal opportunity and equality, but what we do know is that it's not equal to have boys racing against girls and there have to be some other method to allow young people identifying us as transgender to participate in some way that doesn't feel all the opportunities for girls and and let me give you an example from this case. Our client Selena she missed out on moving on to the New England regional competitions by two spots. Those top two spots were taken by the two boys identify as girls and that Selena didn't get the chance to go on to a place where she would been seen by college recruiters and scouts. She could've potentially been given scholarships. We have never have any idea of which opportunities she missed out on all the things that she's poured into her practice. Her passion is now being shut down because she knows before the race begins.

You can lose it's more than just a metal although that is important. There also potentially missing out on the opportunity to be seen by college recruiters and then go on to compete at the next level, meaning college scholarships and all the wonderful things that come with being a college athlete like getting to travel having the come Rodriguez teammates having mentor ship the physical advantages the health advantages.

It is so much more than just a place on the podium.

What are you hoping will be the result of the ruling on this specific case in Connecticut. How will that how we hoping this will impact other states and even nationwide. So, our hope is that this investigation which is the first of its kind will not only restore an equal playing field in Connecticut, but that the federal government finding that this sort of policy violates title IX will send the message to leave at 17 other states that have these sorts of policies and so what we love to see is that the states conforming to title IX once Connecticut is sort of the test case in the federal government rules. The disorder policy violates title IX do you have an estimate on when that ruling might be made. It could be as soon as just a few months, but we've also seen it take as long as two years and perhaps some policies will change.

Just in the meantime because anyone who really studies title IX can see that a policy allowing boys to communicate girls is the exact opposite of what title IX demands for just about out of time for this week. But before we go, Denise. What can our listeners go to learn more about title IX and this particular case that we've been talking about today. Your listeners can find out all of the information about this case and title IX, and the other great work that we have right now at ABF legal.org you can see the case page. There you can read our title IX complaint there and you can read more about Connecticut's policies as well as what's going on in the other states great Denise Harley thank you so much for being with us on family policy matters think Tracy is a mother been listening to family policy matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plenitude in again next week to listen to the show all lawn insulin more about NC families work to warm encourage and inspire families across been through a lot of good or website it NC family.award that's NC family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your friend