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Chelsea Mitchell, a female high school track star in Connecticut, recently wrote an opinion piece in USA Today discussing her experience competing against biological males, but after publishing the piece, the newspaper’s editors stealth-edited it because they considered her use of the word “male” to be “hurtful” to the transgender community.
Quick Facts
Mitchell’s poignant opinion piece in USA Today is entitled: “I Was the Fastest Girl in Connecticut. But Transgender Athletes Made it an Unfair Fight.”
However, three days after the story was originally published, the paper’s staff went in and replaced any use of the word “male” to “transgender” — without consulting or notifying Mitchell — after receiving intense criticism from transgender activists. The publication then added an editor’s note that stated, “This column has been updated to reflect USA TODAY’s standards and style guidelines. We regret that hurtful language was used.”
In response, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represents Mitchell and other athletes in a lawsuit against the Connecticut Association of Schools, has since published her original unedited article.
In it, Mitchell wrote,
“It’s February 2020. I’m crouched at the starting line of the high school girls’ 55-meter indoor race. This should be one of the best days of my life. I’m running in the state championship, and I’m ranked the fastest high school female in the 55-meter dash in the state. I should be feeling confident. I should know that I have a strong shot at winning.
Instead, all I can think about is how all my training, everything I’ve done to maximize my performance, might not be enough, simply because there’s a runner on the line with an enormous physical advantage: a male body.”
She explained that she lost four state titles to biological males who have dominated the sport since being allowed to participate in women’s sports.
“That’s a devastating experience. It tells me that I’m not good enough; that my body isn’t good enough; and that no matter how hard I work, I am unlikely to succeed, because I’m a woman,” she wrote. “But besides the psychological toll of experiencing unfair losses over and over, the CIAC’s policy has more tangible harms for women.”
Mitchell continued,
“It robs girls of the chance to race in front of college scouts who show up for elite metes [sic], and to compete for the scholarships and opportunities that come with college recruitment. I’ll never know how my own college recruitment was impacted by losing those four state championship titles to a male. When colleges looked at my record, they didn’t see the fastest girl in Connecticut. They saw a second- or third-place runner.
And it’s not just happening to me. My friend and fellow plaintiff Selina Soule was bumped from qualifying for the state championship 55-meter final and an opportunity to qualify for the New England championship by a male runner in 2019. Meanwhile, Alanna Smith, an incredibly talented female athlete, was the second-place female runner in the 200-meter at the New England Regional Championships, but was dropped to third behind a male competitor.”
Mitchell and her fellow athletes will now continue their fight in court, appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after a federal district judge refused in April to rule on the merits of their case and instead dismissed it as moot because the two transgender athletes have since graduated.
ADF Legal Counsel Christiana Holcomb said,
Unfortunately, the district court chose to ignore our clients’ demoralizing experiences of losing to male runners, so we have appealed to the 2nd Circuit. These committed female athletes—and young women across the country—deserve better. In this particular case, the conversation centers on Connecticut’s high school track-and-field program, but something bigger is at stake here: Girls and women deserve opportunities that are truly equal—without being sidelined or dominated by males choosing to join their sport.”
The female athletes originally had the support of the Trump administration in their lawsuit, but the Biden administration has since removed the U.S. government’s support.
The federal judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit, the Biden administration taking the side of transgenders over women, the woke mob complaining about Mitchell use of the word “male,” and USA Today’s editing of her opinion piece all center around one thing: intersectionality.
Women’s rights used to matter to the left, but that was before new, more politically expedient groups entered the scene. Homosexuals and transgenders are more important to the left than women because, supposedly, they are more oppressed. As a result, it doesn’t matter to them if women and girls are denied opportunities or psychologically or physically harmed.
Don’t misunderstand: Leftist politicians will still pander to women for their votes, but as clearly stated in intersectionality guidelines, when there is a conflict between two voting blocs, women are viewed as oppressed only when they are in conflict with cisgender heterosexual white males — or when they have need for an abortion.
Otherwise, the “party of science” is more than happy to throw women and basic biology under the bus in favor of the LGBT agenda.
Mitchell and all female athletes need to know that their rights to basic fairness and safety also matter, and as Title IX promises, they also have a legal right to equal opportunity in sports. Even though the left and the Biden administration don’t see it that way, the judges at the Second Circuit Court should do the right thing and send a very strong message that women are not subordinate, second-class citizens to males when those males claim to be women.
