At least five male track and field athletes claiming to be women defeated female competitors at state high school championship events across the country this spring.
Activists with the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, also known as ICONS, revealed that males claiming transgender identity won state track and field titles in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon, and Washington while competing against females and fully complying with the athletics rules in their states. Three more male athletes competed against women in Hawaii, Connecticut, and Washington but ultimately did not win victories.
Among the males who defeated females were Lizzy Bidwell, a junior in Connecticut who landed a triple jump fourteen inches longer than his nearest rival, and Maelle Jacques, a sophomore in New Hampshire who won the high jump and placed second in his 1600 meter race.
The victories comes as new rules issued by the Department of Education would redefine “sex discrimination” to involve sex characteristics, pregnancy, “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity,” allowing for students to use their preferred locker rooms and restrooms, as well as to potentially compete in their preferred sports leagues. Republican state-level education officials vowed to challenge the new rules and instructed districts to avoid changing their policies.
United States District Judge Danny Reeves halted enforcement of the new rules this week in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. He said the rules improperly redefine “sex” to include “gender identity” and come from “arbitrary and capricious rulemaking.”
An increasingly large share of Americans believe that self-described transgender athletes should not be permitted to compete in sports leagues opposite to their actual sex.
One survey from Gallup conducted last year showed that 69% of respondents think “transgender athletes” should “only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender,” marking a 7% increase since the question was asked two years earlier.
