OPINION:
Last week, Hailey Davidson, a transgender woman, won her first professional title in Florida, topping LPGA player Perrine Delacour for the win.
The same day, she was sent an email by the USGA saying she’s met the organization’s Gender Policy eligibility criteria and can now compete in its championships and she’s hoping to hear similar news from the LPGA via a reciprocity agreement, according to Golfweek.
So much for fairness in women’s sports.
In January, Ms. Davidson underwent gender reassignment surgery, and she’s been undergoing hormone treatments since 2015. Since transitioning, Ms. Davidson said she hits shorter and swings slower — yet she still was born a man, and obviously, has a physical advantage over biological women.
The science in these cases is clear. Biological men have more muscle mass, larger hearts and lungs, and therefore greater stamina than biological women. Their bones are bigger, and their testosterone helps promote muscle memory — that doesn’t go away even after hormone therapy. Therefore, transgender girls have a heightened ability to build strength even after they’ve transitioned.
Ms. Davidson insists “any advantage that existed is fully gone,” after she lost weight for her surgery and stayed away from strength training to trim her muscle mass. Her goal is to become the first transgender athlete to earn an LPGA membership.
Earlier this year, both the USGA and LPGA revised their Gender Policy to permit trans players to compete immediately after their gender reassignment surgeries. Before trans players had to wait two years after their surgeries to compete. Ms. Davidson lobbied both bodies to remove the wait time, and they obliged.
For what it’s worth, I hope Ms. Davidson keeps winning and becomes the next Tiger Woods of the LPGA. She’ll win cash prizes and push down the earnings of the other top biological women on the tour. That’s what these progressives want, after all — “fairness.”
On President Biden’s first day in office, he signed an executive order threatening to pull federal funding from schools that didn’t allow transgender girls to compete on biological girls sports teams. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi followed suit and passed the radical Equality Act, which would codify Mr. Biden’s order.
The Democrats’ argument is allowing transgender girls to play on the sports team of their choosing achieves “equality.” Yet, what about the equality of biological women to compete on an equal playing field?
Women’s sports are on the precipice of being dominated by transgender women. New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is slated to compete against biological women at this year’s Olympics in Tokyo after winning two gold medals at the Pacific Games.
College senior CeCe Telfer won the NCAA Division II national championship in the 400-meter run. In Connecticut, Terry Miller won the girl’s 200-meter dash in the state’s championship track meet. Ms. Miller and another transgender runner Andraya Yearwood have collectively won 15 different state championship titles that were once held by nine different girls across the state.
Transgender Caitlyn Jenner, who is now running for California governor, has said if you’re a biological boy, you shouldn’t be able to compete against biological women in sports. She should know — before transitioning, she was Bruce Jenner, an Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete.
Martina Navratilova, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles in tennis, has lobbied the Biden administration to revise its transgender executive order to protect biological women competing in elite sports.
She argued the physical advantages for transgender women who had gone through male puberty were “pretty obvious,” saying she opposed “an all-inclusive situation where trans men and women, just based on their self I.D., would be able to compete with no mitigation, no rules outside of that whatsoever. And that clearly would not be a level playing field.”
Ms. Navratilova has launched the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group to work on a “science-based, ethical approach,” to “establish a middle ground that both protects girls’ and women’s sport and accommodates transgender athletes.”
Both she and Ms. Jenner were promptly slammed by the mainstream media and progressive activists for their opinions.
Yet, female sports need to be protected. Women have made such strides under Title IX — and all of this advancement would be made null and void if they have to compete with biological males. It’s time to enhance women’s rights, not weaken them. Every biological girl deserves the right to compete on a level playing field.
