Female Athlete at Center of Trans Competition Lawsuit Notches Milestone Victory
News that a male athlete was beaten by a girl would be a lighthearted human interest story in a sane world. Unfortunately, since falling down the rabbit hole of transgender theory, Chelsea Mitchell must now worry whether her victory on the track over a boy who identifies as female will jeopardize her court case.
Mitchell is one of three Connecticut female athletes who are suing in federal court to bar boys who identify as females from competing in girls sports.
On Friday, Canton High’s Mitchell beat her transgender opponent, Terry Miller of Bloomfield High, by .02 seconds to win the 55-meter dash in the Class S state championships in New Haven, the Hartford Courant reported.
The Class S girls 55 meter state championship goes to Canton senior Chelsea Mitchell, who edged out defending champ Terry Miller of Bloomfield. #cttrack pic.twitter.com/aDL7ieIEsx
— Shawn McFarland (@McFarland_Shawn) February 14, 2020
Since the impetus for the girls’ lawsuit was the fundamental unfairness of having a male athlete compete with female athletes, questions may arise as to whether this win negates their whole argument.
However, as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative nonprofit that is providing legal services for the female athletes, noted, Mitchell previously “has been denied the title of state champion four times because the CIAC has allowed male athletes to compete as girls.”
Girls who are bested by boys identifying as female miss out on championships and important wins that attract the attention of recruiters, the lawsuit says.
Selina Soule, another plaintiff in the case, was beaten by transgender runners who took first and second place in Connecticut’s 2019 Indoor Track and Field State Championships. She was sidelined as the third-place sprinter at the New England Regional Championships and missed the chance to compete in front of college scouts, according to her legal team.
While it used to be self-evident that sex-segregated sports are necessary since men and women are built differently and thus perform differently, a news release from the American Civil Liberties Union called the lawsuit “a dangerous distortion of both law and science in the service of excluding trans youth from public life.”
Unfortunately for the ACLU, neither the science nor the law supports the notion that the girls’ lawsuit is anything but a remedy for an unfair situation.
The science is clear — according to a Duke Law study comparing athletic performance between the sexes, “there is an average 10-12% performance gap between elite males and elite females.”
If top athletes cannot close that gap, it stands to reason that high school girls can scarcely overcome it, either.
Since the ACLU also brought up law, it should also be noted that Title IX was enacted in part to protect funding for female sports since they were so often overshadowed by their male counterparts.
With the infiltration of men who identify as female into women’s sports, eventually women could potentially be edged out entirely. Add to this the danger of the Equality Act, which adds the nebulous term “gender identity” into the mix of protected classes, and female athletes will be right back where they began: marginalized and underfunded.
Most notably, nowhere in the lawsuit, supporting documents or subsequent interviews has one person or entity asserted that transgender youth should be excluded from public life.
Mitchell and her fellow female athletes are simply seeking a fair playing field (or in this case, track). Without a logical refutation of the girls’ position, the ACLU and other leftists resort to the straw man of transgendered folks being denied their existence. They have a right to exist, but they don’t have the right to compete against runners of the opposite sex simply by asserting they are a different gender.
Pretty good night for @Cantonwarriors senior Chelsea Mitchell:
✔️ 55 meter dash state title
✔️ 300 meter dash state title
✔️ long jump state title#cttrack
?: @BradCourant https://t.co/Pg4mS7N3i8 pic.twitter.com/hOieAT3ILW
— Shawn McFarland (@McFarland_Shawn) February 15, 2020
Feminists often argue that because of historical sexism, women have to work twice as hard as men to compete. While that is arguable elsewhere, it has become a fact in athletic competition now that transgenders are allowed to compete as equals with female athletes.
There is no shame in the fact that men are physically bigger, stronger and faster than women. It doesn’t mean that women are not equal in dignity or as deserving in respect. It just means biology favors males when it comes to athletic competition.
Conversely, biology favors women when it comes to giving birth — but shockingly even that indisputable fact of life is now controversial.
In a sane world, Chelsea Mitchell’s hard work and grit would be applauded by the very people who are denigrating her now. Mitchell’s recent victory on the track should be recognized and honored for what it is — despite all odds and unfairness stacked against her, “nevertheless, she persisted.”
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