At age eleven, I led a small rebellion against Blue Bell Elementary School’s dress code, which required girls (but not boys) to wear skirts. So unfair. How the heck could we girls slide feet-first into base during recess without flashing our underwear — while the boys lurked, ready to peek and taunt?
Did Mrs. R., the teacher on recess duty, expect us to perch demurely on the sidelines while the boys, unencumbered by their clothing, romped as they pleased?
Our first attempt: My friends and I quietly changed into shorts before recess then sprinted out of the building blissfully: wet dogs after a bath. Mrs. R. cracked her whistle like a leash, reeling us back inside.
Second attempt: We wore shorts surreptitiously all day, under our skirts. This time, Mrs. R. didn’t notice until six of us were hanging upside down on the jungle gym, swinging and singing. Mrs. R. gave up – but took me aside afterward to chastise me.
“You’re a leader,” she conceded, “but you’re leading people in the wrong direction.
What I learned: In the face of unfair rules, girls can resist, persist, and succeed.1 2 Also: I’m a leader. (Thanks, Mrs. R.)
“I’m trans now. This is 2025. This is normal.”
Nowadays, sports and sexist slights are training a new generation of feminists by forcing them to play sports with and undress in front of boys.3
Here’s 16-year-old Frances Staudt, speaking publicly about girls’ need for all-female sports while trans activists try to drown out her voice; and
Eight girls’ high school volleyball teams have forfeited games against Jurupa Valley and their male player, AB Hernandez, who already won a gold medal at the state girls’ track championships. Three of his teammates are suing based on discrimination and locker-room sexual harassment.
Last month at Esperanza High School in Anaheim, California, Lesley Ledesma encountered a boy in the girls’ restroom. Here’s how she described the experience on This is a Woman Podcast with Sophia Lorey:
I asked him, “What are you doing in here?”
He said, ‘I’m trans now. I identify as a girl.’
“I was super shocked. My jaw dropped. He said, Why are you reacting like that? This is 2025. This is normal.”
Lesley reported him to administrators, who asked why she was uncomfortable. What is the matter with these adults? Lesley calmly explained:
“I could easily be taken advantage of because I know it has happened to other girls, unfortunately. (Have the adults no concerns about girls’ safety?) The next day, they told me this specific male has permission to use the girls’ bathroom. This was a slap in the face. I decided I’m going to fight not only for my rights, but the rights of all the other girls in my school.”
Lorey, a former college soccer player who now advocates for all-female sports and spaces, responds: “I’m glad you are not accepting this as the new normal.”
Lesley: “Supposedly he has autism. I know he has family issues and it breaks my heart, but that doesn’t make it okay for him to enter our bathrooms.”
Sophia: “You did the right thing. It’s been California law for twelve years that boys can use the girls’ restrooms. That doesn’t make it okay.”
How encouraging to watch leadership skills and sisterly support evolving in the moment, between these two young women.
Boys walk out to support girls
To protest, Lesley Ledesma staged a high school walkout. Many girls walked out. So did many boys — a new and, let’s hope, growing trend. Here’s Eddie, a freshman:
“As a brother, it is very hard for me to see my sister struggling with this. That’s why I’m speaking up. I want her and all the other girls here to feel safe in a place that should be private.”
Here’s a one-minute clip of Eddie and his male peers, who have more courage and common sense than all the Democrats in Congress put together.4
Why do all-female restrooms and locker rooms matter?
Check out this amicus brief of 31 Olympians and 93 other female athletes, coaches, sports officials, and parents,5 which addresses two upcoming Supreme Court cases: West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Idaho v. Hecox.6
“The same male physiological advantages of aggressiveness, physical size, strength, and power that … create a massive male performance gap on the playing field also heighten the importance to women of having safe spaces protected against male physical dominance.”
“Every individual has a fundamental interest in exercising personal autonomy over their body and a right not to have their genitals exposed to members of the opposite sex without consent.
Forcing girls and women to accept naked men in their private spaces, while naked themselves, also asks us to ignore our self-preservation instinct: what Gavin de Becker describes as “The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence.”7
We need not comply. In the face of unfair rules, girls can resist, persist, and succeed.
And lead people in the right direction.
Thoughts? I’m always curious. See also:
Later, I staged other sports-related rebellions. Such as: Refusing to leave the Stanford athletic director’s office until he agreed to begin implementing Title IX. Refusing to attend John Robert Powers Charm School as required for players on the California Dreams of the Women’s Pro Basketball League. And now: Boycotting my local swimming pool because they still allow boys who “identify as” girls to strip naked in the girls’ showers.
Blue Bell Elementary’s dress code is now unisex. It asks students only to “refrain from wearing shorts that are not at least fingertip length.”
In February, I reported on other trans-identified male intrusions into other women’s locker rooms, such as the basketball high school player in Massachusetts who was suspended — but only after he remarked in the girls’ locker room, “Ooh, titties!” I’ve also discussed Elena Resto and her peers, who collectively told their school board, “No more boys in girls’ locker rooms!”
Thanks to Women Are Real for the videos. Here’s the 19-minute press conference featuring numerous girls and boys.
Quotes from more than a dozen of these briefs will appear in an upcoming Women’s Sports Policy newsletter. Subscribe to stay in touch.
Both involve boys who claim a right to play girls’ sports. The justices will consider whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents states from offering boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on sex. The West Virginia case also raises the question regarding Title IX.
Thanks to Joanna Vital Health and Lisa Simeone for referencing this book in a Stronger Women discussion.
Women, IMHO, are born having to FIGHT for the most obviously simple things. I know only too well as a black woman when you advocate for right you earn a label. At least your ""leader" label was accurate and prophetic.
“You did the right thing. It’s been California law for twelve years that boys can use the girls’ restrooms. That doesn’t make it okay.”
THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT OK.
Indeed. Only morons, pedophiles, and autogynephiles think it's ok.
Does that statement offend the "Be Kind" crowd?
Tough shit.