Several female athletes and advocates for female athletes testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday about efforts to keep biological men from competing in women’s sports.
Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, testified that protecting women’s sports and being inclusive toward men and boys who identify as women cannot coexist.
“You can protect the boy who wants to take a spot on a girls’ team, or you can protect the girl for whom the spot was designated,” said Jones. “You can protect women’s sports to celebrate female athletes and recognize women as champions, or you can use women’s sports as a place to compare women to less talented males and to teach women that men must be prioritized.”
“We can’t do both. We must make a choice,” she added.
Carly Smolak, a former professional soccer player, also said that failure to protect women’s sports is failing young girls.
“We are failing young female athletes by forcing girls to choose between playing co-ed sports or not playing,” she testified. “The message to young girls is that boys can be better female athletes.”
During a press conference after the hearing, NCAA softball player Kendall Kotzmacher testified that people cannot possibly know what women feel like when they train their whole life to achieve athletic excellence only to have it vanish when competing against a biological male athlete.
“Knowing that we were playing a man is a feeling that you can’t explain to another person,” she said. “Showing up, seeing a male on the field for something you’ve worked your whole life for and knowing there is nothing you can do about it, is unimaginable.”
Likewise, a high school volleyball player also testified at the press conference that she felt blindsided after once learning that a transgender student would be using the girls’ changing area.
“All of us girls do our normal things. We get undressed, unconsciously trusting our friends next to us,” she said.
“It feels as if our protection was just stripped away from us. And they don’t care,” she added.
According to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (D-TN), Democrat lawmakers did not show up to the hearing.