Before the University of Wyoming received calls from Wyomingites, legislators, constituents, and politicians, a spokesman for the University said, “Opinions regarding fairness vary from individual to individual among the involved parties…”
What a fascinating statement.
After the experiences I’ve had, I was very relieved to see our university support women. And let’s be clear, women are biological women. Males with gender dysphoria are not biological women.
All individuals in America are entitled to freedom. However, sports, locker rooms and sororities are a different matter.
Title IX prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating "on the basis of sex."
By sneaking an under-the-radar provision into omnibus education legislation, the Title IX crafters hoped it would offer parity at a time when only a small percentage of women were attending college. Just to give you a sense – in 1970 men earned eight times as many PhDs as women, today women earn more PhDs than men.
Title IX opened doors to women that previously remained shut and tightly locked while we were told to make a sandwich and be good and quiet, pretty little girls.
Title IX took up broader debate in 2011 when sexual harassment in intercollegiate athletics was center stage. During the Obama administration, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a “dear colleague” letter on the need to require schools to allocate access to sex-segregated facilities such as bathrooms and showers on the basis of students’ “gender identity” rather than their biological sex.
The OCR is an administrative office of bureaucrats. They don’t pass law. They offer guidance and conduct investigations. But this administrative move changed the landscape.
Lawsuits around the country are pending, and hopefully the law will become clearer with regard to Title IX’s impact on biological protections and parity, which was always its intended purpose. A purpose now distorted through cultural combat war.
The interpretation of this law is currently a mess. Title IX sexual-harassment guidance says an off-color joke can seriously threaten a female student's educational opportunities.
But according to Title IX transgender guidance now embattled in court, having a person with male anatomy walking around a women's locker room should never be considered threatening.
You may remember the swimmer Riley Gaines talking about how her university wanted her to engage in sensitivity training so she could be desensitized of the trauma she was experiencing as a swimmer in a shower and locker room every day with a man.
We provide separate male and female teams to provide equal opportunity to women because of the physical differences between the sexes, but now say that people can choose their teams on the basis of a subjective idea about gender, not their biology. Makes sense right?
Women must not be deprived of a fair opportunity to play and a safe condition in which to exist. Clearly, some men have never a been 5”4, 120-pound woman stuck in an intimidating environment with a man of superior height and strength.
When they get gasoline they aren’t inclined to survey the environment for threats, the first visceral response of which is to see who is bigger than you and if they look threatening.
This is human nature developed from an environmental dynamic in which we’ve evolved from cave men and women. I think the guys with soft hands typing on computers all day seem to have forgotten that.
The coach for San Jose said, “But it’s not just us that are losing opportunities to play, it’s the people choosing not to play us. That’s very unfortunate when it comes to these young women that have earned the right to step on the court and play.”
He’s right about one thing, the young women have earned the right to play. The moment that someone with a biological advantage steps onto the court with a fundamentally different genetic makeup, that right is compromised.
San Jose’s high scorer of the night in their Thursday game with CSU showed the transgender person with 15.5 points, with had more kills (14) and total attacks (42) than any other player.
Height. Weight. Size. These impact women’s safety. I will not keep quiet about them to engage in a game of virtue signaling and placating yet another man’s emotions. And if one more man lectures me about how I should, I may need to provide a dissertation on childbirth and what it really means to be a woman.
We have every right to assert principles of fairness and biology and safety. Institutions across this country and licensing boards are telling women to shut up and be nice. This is a theme we’ve endured historically, but it just doesn’t set like it once did.
I don’t think we’ll do that this time. We are worthy of protection. We can have a world of unity in which we are not erased, but instead are recognized and appreciated for our differences and allowed associations that are protected.
Cassie Craven may be reached at: ccraven.law@gmail.com
