As a former track and field athlete raised in Oregon, I am disheartened to see the integrity of this year’s high school women’s championships will be jeopardized because of a biological male.
Aayden Gallagher, a boy who identifies as a girl, won gold in both the 200m and 400m dashes last weekend at the Portland Interscholastic League Championships, which qualified him for the 2024 Track and Field State Championships this weekend. Gallagher consistently placed first, taking away the podium from the women who should have been standing there. Women’s sports are for females, not men.
Female athletes today owe a debt of gratitude to trailblazers like Betty Robinson, who competed at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and won the 100 meter race. Back then, only five events were available for women to compete, compared to the twenty-two offered for men.
Thank you, Betty. Thank you to all the women who competed in terrible shoes and non-athletic apparel in order to advance participation in female sports to what we have today. Thank you to all the hard-working females who didn’t let a “no” stop them from competing as women and who fought so hard for the passage of Title IX, which ensured equal opportunity for women in athletics.
Today, because of the strong, dedicated, biological female athletes, we have equal events in track and field between men and women.
This achievement is currently threatened by the Biden administration’s decision to add gender identity to Title IX, and by the state and local organizations that fail to protect female athletes by keeping men out of their sports. In fact, the Oregon School Activities Association released a letter in April asserting that, due to an amended rule from the Oregon Department of Education redefining “sexual orientation” to include “gender identity,” male athletes will be allowed to compete in women’s sports if it aligns with their gender identity.
Allowing biological men to compete in female sports defeats all the hard work and effort that women have accomplished over generations.
No matter how he identifies or what hormone suppressors Gallagher has taken, male bodies have greater heart and lung capacity, higher levels of hemoglobin that enable the body to oxygenate muscles faster, and a more powerful bone structure.
These are biological facts.
But still, men are taking away medals from women who have worked so hard to compete. Hours and hours of intense training have amounted to nothing. As women, we owe it to one another and to our forebearers to stand up against this injustice.
I will be attending the track and field state championship today to show support for the women who had their chance to compete stolen by a male competitor. As a Young Women for America ambassador, I am here to represent hundreds of girls by reminding people that girls’ sports are for girls only.
People need to stand up for female sports; otherwise, there will be no female sports, only male-dominated sports. This would be a huge step back for women as a whole and a major letdown to all those women who have gone before us — like Betty Robinson, who worked so hard to get women to where we are today.
Caitlin Abbott is a Young Women for America Ambassador at Oregon State University-Cascades. Young Women for America is the collegiate leadership program of Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.