Support Maryland HB 359: Save Women’s Sports
PHOTO CREDIT: Jeffrey F Lin
I’ll never forget the moment that my daughter took her first step onto a collegiate softball field. Playing at a Division One school was her goal for almost her entire life. Because of her smaller stature, she fought and outworked the predictions of many detractors, including a local coach or two, who said she would never be a collegiate athlete, much less a Division One athlete.
Yet, there she was. She wasn’t a walk on. She had been recruited to play softball at a great school!
She had many of the qualities of a great collegiate player, speed, good tracking, a great arm, good hand/eye coordination, strength, mental toughness and she could place hits where she wanted. But she didn’t have size, something many collegiate coaches look for. She overcame the one detriment to her resume with hard work.
Don’t get me wrong. There were some big girls that she played against and with. I believe they had one uniform at her school that would fit her because she was that small. It was always a bit daunting for me to watch while some 200-pound player was on a collision course with my daughter on the base paths.
She played for four years. That in itself is a testimony to her commitment, desire, and mental stubbornness. Playing collegiate sports is not easy, especially when you care about your academics as well.
I wonder if she would even get the opportunity to play now with the blurred lines between those who are biological women and those who aren’t but are playing women’s sports anyway. Look at this testimony:
Listen to All-American Swimmer Riley Gaines Testify about Her Experience Competing Against Biological Male Turned Female Lia Thomas.
Gaines is an exceptional athlete. She is one of the best in the world and yet she couldn’t compete against a biological man turned female, “Lia” Thomas, who became a “female” after puberty. You can hear the pain in her voice as she shares that experience.
Gaines is a world class athlete. Imagine the plight of all the excellent, but not world class, female athletes in our country having to do the same. The results would be worse. In many cases they already have been.
Opportunities denied. Scholarships, honors, medals, Olympic experiences all gone in the name of some vile delusion that men can be women and that women can compete athletically against them.
Another video from a group called “Texas Values” talks not only about the unfair advantage Lia Thomas had over biological female athletes but how the NCAA took the “woke” and disgusting stance of choosing to honor a fake female over a real female athlete all for appearances:
If you watch the entire video, you will see other headlines from all over the country where trans females (males) are bumping women off the podium, and out of opportunity.
Normally, here is the part in my blog where I might make a statement that I truly feel for these transgender people, that they should have the right to compete, to pick their gender and compete as that gender as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else…and on and on.
I’m not going to do that. Why? Because unlike the Progressive leftists who screamed for women’s rights for years but have jumped on the transgender bandwagon, I’m not a hypocrite and I’m not willing to give up the rights women fought for. Female athletes are being removed from the award stands and erased from the record boards!
I’ll pray for and be civil and polite to these folks. But I’m not giving them an inch in this fight.
I was 17 when Title Nine passed. I was what was called a “tomboy” growing up. I loved running, jumping, riding horses and gymnastics. I wanted to go to the Olympics or be a rancher. My entire life I watched boys and men play professional sports while women sat on the sidelines. Collegiate sports for women were mainly activities played on back fields in front of no one. They were just there to keep the girls busy.
With Title Nine, we suddenly had a place on the field. It was too late for me to play anything more than a club sport in college. But I went into coaching gymnastics and softball and spent over thirty years coaching female athletes. I watched my daughter grow up in the 90’s playing sports for fun and eventually in college.
Women are now on the front fields, with crowds watching them, television coverage, even professional status.
The pink pussy hat crowd wants us to give that up for some kind of sick desire to adopt any aberrant cause to show how “inclusive” and “tolerant” they are. Funny how those two terms don’t apply to women who want to compete against other biological women under rules that are fair for all natural WOMEN.
We don’t need to go backward just to placate the minute population who want to defy nature, utilize an unfair advantage, and assuage their fragile, sick egos.
Not apologizing for any of that.
In Maryland, a bill has been proposed by Maryland Republicans headed by Delegate Szeliga and signed on by thirty -two other delegates which states there are two biological sexes, female and male determined by genetics and anatomy existing at birth. The bill requires:
AN INTERSCHOLASTIC OR INTRAMURAL JUNIOR VARSITY OR VARSITY ATHLETIC TEAM OR SPORT THAT IS SPONSORED BY A PUBLIC OR NONPUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL SHALL BE EXPRESSLY DESIGNATED AS ONE OF THE FOLLOWING BASED ON BIOLOGICAL SEX: (I) A BOYS, MALE, OR MEN’S TEAM OR SPORT; (II) A GIRLS, FEMALE, OR WOMEN’S TEAM OR SPORT; OR (III) A COEDUCATIONAL OR MIXED TEAM OR SPORT.
(2) AN INTERSCHOLASTIC OR INTRAMURAL JUNIOR VARSITY OR VARSITY ATHLETIC TEAM OR SPORT DESIGNATED FOR GIRLS, FEMALES, OR WOMEN MAY NOT INCLUDE STUDENTS OF THE MALE SEX.
(D) A GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY, A LICENSING OR ACCREDITING ORGANIZATION, OR AN ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION OR ORGANIZATION MAY NOT ACCEPT A COMPLAINT, CONDUCT AN INVESTIGATION, OR TAKE ANY OTHER ADVERSE ACTION AGAINST A SCHOOL OR COUNTY BOARD FOR MAINTAINING SEPARATE INTERSCHOLASTIC OR INTRAMURAL JUNIOR VARSITY OR VARSITY ATHLETIC TEAMS
Download HB0359
Can you hear the pearl necklaces being clutched by GLSEN and other LGBTQ+ groups as they read this bill? Can you see them collecting with their syringes, chest binders and underwear packers to rush the state house? Do you hear them shrieking about (sigh), equity? Their myopic drive to get what they want is obliterating common sense and true fairness in competitive venues.
They will complain because the bill says there are two genders and requires that they don’t compete against each other unfairly. The same people who wanted pay equality for women and so-called reproductive rights are now ready to sell out the rights of over fifty percent of the population to appease 0.39%. (Data from: American Journal of Public Health, “Transgender Population Size in the United States: a Meta-Regression of Population-Based Probability Samples,” Esther L. Meerwijk, PhD and Jae M. Sevelius, PhD)
One may wonder why, if the number of transgenders is so small, women should be upset. After all, how many cases will there be? Remember the athlete called “Lia Thomas” mentioned in the video at the beginning of this article? Lia became a “woman” athlete after being a highly unsuccessful male athlete. Lia did this without cutting off any male genitalia. Lia found a way to be successful unfairly. Lia got accolades, publicity, and all the wonderful accoutrements surrounding “fame.” And Lia got to walk around naked with junk in full view of horrified female athletes. What a rush, right?
If you are a failed male athlete, you now have a freeway to success without drastic measures or too much effort. In today’s society of “me first” and “I am the center of the universe,” this will work for many. The naked presence in the locker room is just icing on the cake.
And it may not be such a rare occurrence either. Listen to another interview with Riley Gaines:
Riley Gaines addresses underreporting of men participating in women’s sports. Like she asks, ” How many women being pushed out is okay?”
Maryland House Bill 359 would fix this terrible situation, but it will probably be sabotaged, dead on arrival, or amended so much that it will be unrecognizable. It’s a noble effort, but the Progressives with their allegiance to gay/ trans PAC’s and Pharmaceutical lobbyists who promote the use of hormone blocking drugs and surgical procedures will no doubt send it to obscurity if we don’t speak out NOW!
If you are like me, you are probably wondering why Progressives would fight this bill.
In 2016 women were all about putting the misogynists in their place. Now it seems that women want misogynists to replace women. And, yes, I said they are misogynists. The definition of that word is someone who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women. You really have to hate women to deprive them of their achievements in order to feed your ego with undeserved accomplishments.
People promoting this outrage are blurring the lines of gender and they’re doing it on purpose. One of the ways that people can be oppressed is to convince them that they are not individuals but just members of a big collective with no unique talents, hopes, and dreams. If they feel they can’t compete, many will give up and sink to a life with no ambition or free will.
Marxists also love turning people against each other in a variety of ways, and this is just one more. If the collective says men can be women and compete against them, those who disagree will be ostracized. If women complain, they will be told to “work harder” or called “transphobes.”
If we can get people to deny God created gender of humans and virtually every other species on earth, we can get them to deny anything. Is it any surprise since these are the same people who support late term abortion by claiming a fetus is not a human? Or the people who want to force unsafe medical procedures and vaccines on children and adults saying “follow the science” when the actual science says these procedures and vaccines are not safe?
And let’s not forget that Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospitals, Health Insurance Companies and doctors make millions off these gender transition therapies and surgeries. We know how deep they have their hooks into our government officials.
Many of these people who fall for this gender deception have mental issues that need to be addressed professionally. Whether they think they are the wrong gender or are convinced people can choose their own gender, there is something wrong when one can deny the reality of nature right in front of their eyes.
We can only hope that the Maryland Legislature will take HB 359 seriously and pass it. Rational thinking needs to prevail. Monica Wright, retired NBA player in an article in THE PLAYERS’ TRIBUNE in 2017 (Why We Need Title IX Now More Than Ever (theplayerstribune.com)) quotes her basketball coach at the University of Virgnia, Debbie Ryan regarding the impact Title IX had on women’s sports:
“You guys are blessed,” she used to tell us. “The fancy locker room, the chartered planes … we didn’t have that when I was playing. We used to share a locker room with the softball team. We used to have to ride a bus when the men’s team would fly. We used to wash our own jerseys.”
And then the author adds:
I know there are those who think that Title IX isn’t important. Or that it hasn’t had that much of an impact. Well, for those people, here are a few numbers to consider. Since 1972, participation in women’s sports in high schools has increased 900%. That’s not a typo. Before Title IX, there were fewer than 30,000 NCAA female athletes. In 2012, that number was nearly 200,000. Just to top it off, in 2012, the United States sent more female than male athletes to the Olympics.
Do we really want to destroy all these gains in order to promote a political agenda?
I said this bill won’t stand a chance. You might think I am giving up. Not at all. Knowing the opposition we will face in the Maryland Legislature just makes me want to fight harder.
I’ll fight for all those women who, like my daughter, work and persevere every day to achieve their dreams without being stymied by opponents who have an unfair, biological advantage as stated in HB 359:
Men generally have “denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments” and “larger hearts, greater lung volume per body mass, a higher red blood cell count, and higher hemoglobin.” Neel Burton, The Battle of the Sexes, PSYCHOL. TODAY (July 2,10 2012), https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide–and seek/201207/the–battle–the–sexes; and WHEREAS, Men also have higher natural levels of testosterone, which affects traits such as hemoglobin levels, body fat content, the storage and use of carbohydrates, and the development of Type 2 muscle fibers, all of which result in men being able to generate higher speed and power during physical activity. Doriane Lambelet Coleman, Sex in Sport, 80 LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS 63, 74 (2017) (quoting Gina Kolata, Men, Women and Speed. 2 Words: Got Testosterone? N.Y. TIMES (Aug. 21, 2008)); and WHEREAS, The biological differences between females and males, especially as they relate to natural levels of testosterone, “explain the male and female secondary sex characteristics which develop during puberty and have lifelong effects, including those most important for success in sport: categorically different strength, speed, and endurance.” Doriane Lambelet Coleman and Wickliffe Shreve, “Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men,” Duke Law Center for Sports Law and Policy, https://web.law.duke.edu/sports/sex–sport/comparative–athletic–performance
If we don’t keep women’s sports for women, we will lose all the gains from 1972. I’m not willing to give up those gains. Not for anyone, for any reason!
Please write to your delegates and encourage them to support HB 359. Here’s how:
HB 359 – Save Women’s Sports Act sponsored by Delegate Kathy Szeliga and 32 Republican Delegates will have a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee on Wed 2/15 at 1 p.m. To testify on this bill you must sign up on the General Assembly “MyMGA” account on their website at: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov.
You will need to click on the “MyMGA” icon in the upper right-hand corner. From there, you can create an account. Once you create an account you can sign up to testify either in person, virtually, or in writing. You can only sign up during certain times, generally 48 hours prior to the hearing.
If you don’t want to testify, write to these members of the House Ways and Means Committee:
Vanessa Atterbeary, Chair Jheanelle Wilkins, Vice Chair
Jan Greenhawk, Editor and author of Radio Free Oxford
February 12, 2023
Jan is a retired teacher and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
© Janet L. Greenhawk and Radio Free Oxford, 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janet L. Greenhawk and Radio Free Oxford with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
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