Over 300 Women Sign Letter to NCAA Supporting Idaho’s Law Protecting Female Athletes

Governor Brad Little of Idaho signed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act into law in March to protect women’s equal opportunities in athletics and fair competition in high school and college sports. Men are barred from competing in women’s sports. After the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the state, two female track runners in Idaho sought to intervene in the lawsuit.

The governor’s action was in response to Connecticut allowing men to compete with women in physical sports. Four high school track-running girls filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and a lawsuit against Connecticut over the “transgender” policy. These girls have lost opportunities because they lost races to larger, stronger, faster boys pretending to be girls.

Over 300 women signed a letter (PDF) sent to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Board of Governors in support of Idaho’s law specifically and female sports in general. An excerpt:

We strongly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to compete, but true athletic parity for women demands that women’s sports be protected for biological females. Protecting the integrity of women’s sports has, for decades, played an integral role in remedying past discrimination against women and empowering them to achieve their full athletic potential.

Studies attest to the reality that comparably fit and trained male athletes have innate physiological advantages over females.1
Team USA sprinter Allyson Felix holds the most World Athletics Championship medals in history. Yet in 2018 alone, 275 high school boys ran faster times in the 400-meter on 783 occasions.2 Even the world’s best female Olympic athletes would lose to literally thousands of male athletes—including those who would be considered second tier in the men’s category—on any given day.3 Testosterone suppression does not undo these physiological advantages.4 We do not want to watch our athletic achievements be erased from the history books by individuals with all the inherent athletic advantages that come from a male body.

The NCAA’s mandate is fair competition. We urge you to reject all calls to boycott and bully Idaho for preserving fair competition for women and girls across Idaho.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement supporting the Idaho law, contending that the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act complies with the Equal Protection Clause and that the ACLU can’t “seriously maintain that every biological male has a constitutional right to participate on athletic teams limited to biological females.”