Protecting Women's Sports
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, a year and a half ago, Riley Gaines bravely spoke out when she was forced to compete against a biological male, Lia Thomas, at the 2022 NCAA swimming championships.
It is still an issue. Riley and Lia at the time tied for fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle after Lia had won the 500-yard freestyle the previous night.
On the podium, the NCAA handed Lia the fifth place trophy for the tie that Lia and Riley had and gave Riley the sixth place trophy, telling Riley she would receive her correct trophy in the mail later, not even deciding by a coin flip or some other tiebreaker.
I remember hearing this story and being completely appalled. I was sympathetic for Riley and for the heartbreak and disrespect she and all of the other women and girls had who worked their whole lives to compete at the highest level in collegiate swimming or even in high school and lower levels.
I also remember hearing calls and rebuttals from those who sympathized with Lia Thomas and transgender kids across the country: Just let Lia compete. She deserves it. Transgender kids have the highest rates of suicide. Let them play sports and they will be happy. It is not happening often. Don't worry about it. This is just a one- time thing. This won't open the floodgates.
Unfortunately, this is not a one-time thing. This is happening often, and the floodgates have been opened at all age ranges. In the last year and a half, we have seen countless stories of opportunities being taken away from young women by biological males competing in their sports, whether it is being bumped from first place to second place or top two or males in running events where the girls are losing out on Olympic spots, endorsement deals, college scholarships, or even whether they are going to make the varsity team or not. All of these tragedies for women and girls in sports deserve outrage from all Americans.
In addition, the left has silenced young women who have stated that they feel uncomfortable sharing locker rooms with biological males. Instead, for the case of Lia Thomas' teammates, these young women have been outrageously--get this--told to get counseling.
Just a few years ago, we had the #MeToo movement in which we were told to believe all women, yet a few years later we are being told not to believe women or even see what their feelings and thoughts are but rather believe the biological male who believes he is a woman.
Speaking of believe all women, last week, up in Canada, a 50-year-old biological male was allowed to participate in a swim meet with 13- to 14-year old girls because he identified as a 13-year-old girl. You cannot make this stuff up. This 50-year-old man was able to use the girls' locker room to change with underage young women. I cannot express how angry this makes me and many sensible Americans and Canadians.
Where are the adults in the room? How can any responsible adults allow this to happen, to just blindly stand by and say: Oh, this is no big deal?
The safety, fair competition, and happiness of these young girls should be prioritized over this deranged 50-year-old man who somehow believes he has the right to violate everyone else's rights for his pathetic interest in competing against girls.
We see this other sports as well, in ring fighting and others, where a biological male can actually do very devastating damage to a woman.
What can we do about all this? In the House, we passed H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, back in April. It passed, unfortunately, on a party-line vote. Sadly, not one Democrat could find the way to support and vote in keeping girls' sports for biological females.
I am proud of the Republican Conference for making the safety, privacy, and opportunity of women and girls in sports, and in general, a top priority.
I strongly urge my colleagues in the Senate to bring this bill up for a vote, to put your name on the line as to what you think about the sanctity of women's sports and women's and girls' place in society in general.
In addition, many State legislatures have since passed bills to protect women's sports in their State. Some of their Governors even felt the need to pass a bill titled: the Women's Bill of Rights, which defines the word ``woman'' because of increasing numbers of challenges as to what the words ``man'' and ``woman'' mean. Unfortunately, this is necessary because if we do not codify the definition of sex-based terms, laws that prohibit sex discrimination don't mean anything.
It is amazing that the media figure Matt Walsh has a film titled: ``What is a Woman?'' that many on the left cannot even answer the question, or they give such contorted answers in their nonanswer that it is just pathetic. Even a Supreme Court Justice nominee had to avoid the language. Lord, help us.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source