The latest win by a trans athlete at a high school race has reignited a row about letting biological males compete in women’s sports, in what’s shaping up to be a key issue in the 2024 presidential election.
This weekend, Athena Ryan, a male-to-female trans runner, came second in the 1600-meter race against high school girls — a success that robbed another female-born runner of the chance to qualify.
Adeline Johnson, 18, gave the cameras a thumbs down after her fourth-place finish, which meant she would not move forward.
Women’s rights campaigners told DailyMail.com that Ryan’s success was ‘disheartening’ for girls who struggle to win as more biological males, who have advantages in strength and speed, compete against them.
They also warned of an increasingly divisive issue that pits President Joe Biden, the Democrats and trans activists against Republicans, women’s rights campaigners and parents of female athletes.
‘What happened this weekend in California was not an isolated incident,’ said Marshi Smith, a former swimming champ and co-founder of the Independent Council on Womens Sports, which campaigns for female-only competitions.
A DailyMail.com/TIPP Poll of 1,365 adults last month found that more than half said trans athletes should only be allowed to compete in the category of their birth sex. That included some two thirds of Republicans and more than half of Democrats
‘It’s also happening right now in Pennsylvania and Nevada, and we’re going to see more and more girls losing out on their spots and opportunities. It is upsetting.’
Ryan, who ran in the boy’s team for Sonoma Academy until 2021, when she switched to girl’s events, stormed to the runner-up position in the varsity girls’ 1,600-meter finals of the CIF-North Coast Section Meet of Champions on Saturday.
It was just the latest in a series of trans athletics rows.
Payton McNabb, a North Carolina high school volleyball player, last month urged officials to ban biological males from competing on female sports teams. She was injured when a trans girl athlete spiked a ball at her in a competition game last year.
Among the most famous trans athlete is Lia Thomas, a 6′ 1′ male-to-female swimmer who competed for the University of Pennsylvania before moving up to win the women’s 500-yard freestyle NCAA event.
Critics say she’s stealing trophies from biological women.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova and other women athletes have slammed the inclusion of biological males in women’s sports, saying it’s ‘not fair’ due to the many physical advantages men have over women.
Caitlyn Jenner, a 1976 decathlon Olympic gold medalist who came out as a transgender woman in 2015, and Riley Gains, a University of Kentucky swimmer who competed against Thomas, have also spoken up for women only sports.
While some argue that going through male puberty gives trans women physical advantages, supporters of transgender participation in sports say not enough research has been done into whether trans women have any advantage.
Athena Ryan, who transitioned from male to female, secured second place and a spot in the California state finals
Ryan’s second place finish (right) pushed Johnson (left) out of the running for the women’s state title
The US public is skeptical about trans athletes.
A DailyMail.com/TIPP Poll of 1,365 adults last month found that more than half said trans athletes should only be allowed to compete in the category of their birth sex. That included some two thirds of Republicans and more than half of Democrats.
Another quarter said trans athletes should be allowed to switch categories; a fifth was not sure.
The rules governing how and when trans athletes can compete are a patchwork of federal and state rules and laws, and the entry requirements of various amateur and professional sports bodies.
This year, it became a hot button issue between Republicans and Democrats.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, a research group, 21 states now ban trans student athletes from competing in a category that does not align with their birth sex.
House Republicans last month passed a bill to stop schools and colleges from getting federal funds from allowing trans athletes to compete in girls’ or women’s sports, called the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.
But the Democratic-led Senate will not support the bill, and the White House said President Biden would veto it.
The Biden Administration last month proposed changes to Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs, signalling a compromise approach to translate athletes.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy addressing a crowd after the passage in the House of the ‘Save Women’s Sports’ bill
Riley Gaines, a spokeswoman for Independent Women’s Forum, has become a leading voice against letting trans athletes in women’s sports, after tying for fifth against male-to-female swimmer Lia Thomas, pictured
The proposal would make it illegal for schools to impose blanket bans on trans students from sports teams that don’t align with their birth sex, but allow carveouts when issues of physicality and fairness arise.
Kara Dansky, president of the US branch of Women’s Declaration International, said the Biden administration had ‘backed away from its previous stance of completely redefining sex’ in the favor of trans campaigners.
Kara Dansky, president of the US branch of Women’s Declaration International
‘We’re more committed than ever before to ensuring that US law protects women and girls as a sex class at all levels of government,’ Dansky told DailyMail.com.
Biden and his Democratic Party have pushed for more rights for trans Americans over the objections of Republicans — making this a likely frontline in next year’s presidential election.
Leading the pack of Republican nominees are former president Donald Trump and Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who have both vowed to combat trans ideas in America’s schools, hospitals, and sports fields.
About 1.4 percent of Americans aged between 13- and 17-years-old identify as transgender, having a different gender identity than their birth sex, says the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA’s Law School.
Among those 300,000 are several hundred trans-identified kids who compete in high school sports, said Smith, adding that official numbers are not available. Another few dozen trans athletes compete in college sports.
