Five Reasons Female Athletes Are Winning in the Contest for Female-Only Sports & Spaces

Snippets from my Speech at Genspect

Greetings, friends, and welcome, new subscribers!

I’m writing this before Genspect’s Bigger Picture Conference in Albuquerque on the weekend of September 27 and 28, so at this point, I only know about the speech I plan to give, not the one I actually gave. But I’ll share some excerpts from my planned remarks with you here, and share more about the conference another time.¹

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Hi. My name is Mariah Burton Nelson, and my pronouns are… we and us. I’m using “we” and “us” to refer to the female athletes who are leading the campaign for female-only sports and spaces.

We are the woman in the front of this bike – and also the woman in the back.

I’m not literally speaking for all of us, of course. I’m giving credit to my worldwide teammates – and highlighting our teamwork.

We are champion athletes such as Nancy Hogshead, JD, Oly (who’s here), Jennifer Sey (who’s here), Linda Blade, Sharron Davies, Riley Gaines, Kim Jones, Donna Lopiano, Martina Navratilova, Paula Scanlan, Marshi Smith, Inga Thompson, Donna de Varona, Mara Yamauchi… and young girls and women, parents, coaches such as Tracy Sundlun, scholars, lawyers, lobbyists, writers, policy experts, and more.

We are feminists, whether we use the word or not, because feminism is fundamentally about protecting the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls. For women, sports are a feminist training ground. When we say yes to sports, we say no oppressive rules about how girls should look and behave. When we say yes to female-only locker rooms, we say no to male control over our bodies. Through sports, we learn to stand our ground. To trust other women. To win.

All of which is coming in handy now. Here are five reasons we are winning so far in this contested struggle for female-only sports and spaces:

1) We know, on a visceral level, the differences between women and men.

We know that our bodies, with our hips, breasts, periods, and pregnancies, were designed to gestate and nurse babies – AND to move, sprint, swim, leap, hit, spike, catch, throw, and kick butt.

We know that male bodies are bigger and stronger. We learned this from playing backyard baseball, pickup basketball, and other sports with boys and men.

We know that men are more aggressive. Men have invaded our sports and spaces before. We remember the men who molested us as we sat, frozen in teenage confusion, in the front seat of our beloved coach’s car. We remember the men who, when we were out running, tackled us, dragged us into the woods, and raped us.

So when other men tell us they’re women now: We recognize that they, too, are trying to gaslight us, drag us off course, insert themselves.

These men who “feel like women”: They act like men – the sexist variety – invoking male privilege to violate female boundaries.

2) We have a head start in educating the public about sports, sex, and fairness.

As result of our own advocacy over many decades, the public now supports women’s sports. Half of all girls now play sports – and half of all parents make financial and emotional investments in their athletic daughters. Women’s sports are now visible.

3) We stage protests; lobby policymakers and politicians; file lawsuits; submit petitions; write amicus briefs; and draft new laws and policies.

4) We tell our stories, focusing on women and girls.

Here’s Annaleigh Wilson, 14, after she lost a Junior Olympics race to a boy, explaining emotional blackmail to 500 adults:

“We were told that it will be our fault if this transgender athlete takes their life.”

Here’s another middle schooler, Elena Resto, explaining to a California school board in a strong voice,

“Sharing locker rooms between males and females can lead to discomfort, embarrassment, and a loss of dignity, especially for minors. I say no more!”

5) We team up.

Despite differences in race, class, age, nationality, sexual orientation, and politics, we collaborate: Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, ICONS, Women’s Declaration International, Women’s Liberation Front, Sex Matters, Fair Play for Women, the International Consortium for Female Sport, Independent Women’s Forum, Concerned Women for America, HeCheated.org, SheWon.org, Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender, Women Are Real, ROAR NY, Genspect, and more.

We team up with male and female scholars, researchers, and allies with trans experience, including Corinna Cohn (who’s here) and Renee Richards.

We would welcome our old friends from the Women’s Sports Foundation, Feminist Majority Foundation, and National Women’s Law Center: organizations that now, bafflingly, prioritize males. That door is open.

Our success is linked to your success.

Sport is a tilting domino that – along with your work in medicine, law, science, psychology, families, detransitioners, and more – is toppling the dangerous myth that boys can magically become girls. We thank you for teaming up with us in the past — and, we hope, in the future.

Here’s my friend and colleague Nancy Hogshead: 3-time Olympic gold-medal swimmer, Title IX attorney, lifelong women’s sports advocate, and CEO of Champion Women:

“How could they have imagined that female athletes would ever back down?”

We have been training for this all of our lives.

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Thoughts? I’m always curious. See also:

• #SaveWomensSports

• our Women’s Sports Policy newsletter

1. Genspect will soon upload to YouTube the actual speech, along with those of other presenters, and I’ll send you that link.