The Patriot Post® · How Women Are Losing the Athletics Game

When Franklin Pierce University runner CeCe Telfer crossed the finish line to win the NCAA national championship, it wasn’t a victory for women.

The biological male who identifies as female won the Division II women’s 400-meter hurdles, and that was a loss for American women.

As a father of a student-athlete, it’s hard enough for me to watch my son’s team lose a game. But what I couldn’t imagine is him having a great opportunity snatched away from him due to gender politics.

But let’s not make this about me or my sons. Let’s talk about what Tefler’s victory means for female athletes. Perhaps demoralizing isn’t nearly a strong enough word.

Imagine if Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the acclaimed First Lady of American Athletics, was challenged by biological men? Would she have made the breakthroughs needed help give female athletes a place in the sports world?

Plus, is it okay that scholarship opportunities and sports contracts are snatched from biological women in this manner? NCAA policy states that as long as testosterone levels are suppressed (for a year), men should be able to compete on women’s teams. But despite this, we ignore the fact that a vast difference in strength between men and women still remains.

So why are women choosing to put up with the NCAA’s policy? And to the families of student-athlete daughters, why set your child up to ultimately fail in the name of political inclusiveness? Where is the outrage? These opportunities in women’s athletics were paved by so many amazingly talented women. Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Dominique Dawes, Mia Hamm, Ronda Rousey, Naomi Osaka, and others who have leapt a number of hurdles of their own to show aspiring female athletes the way to success.

So please don’t tell me that these strong women are going to let yet another man knock their chances at athletic empowerment, even if he identifies as female. Because to call this championship a woman’s victory is an insult at best.