Follows is a commentary I sent to the Minnesota Star Tribune after the Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) were served notice from the feds that they had been violating girls’ and women’s Title IX rights, and had ten days to redress that gross human rights violation.
To the Star Tribune, every story is about marginalized, bullied boys with girl identities, e.g. boys have their own rights but are also gifted all girls’ stolen rights; Star Trib headline: Transgender athletes just want to do the sport they love. After ten years of silencing, shaming, and coercion by adults as well as peers, a few girls have to file a court case to try to recover rights promised them in Title IX; Star Trib headline: Far-right anti-trans bigots try to ban transgender athletes from sports. Having taken Title IX federal funds for ten years but flagrantly breaking that contract, Minnesota doubles down on their vow to make sure women and girls have no sex-based rights whatsoever; Star Trib headline: Feds try to steal trans rights to compete in girls’ sports and use their locker rooms. Seventy-nine percent of Americans think sports should be separated by birth sex; Star Trib headline: Trans genocide! There’s a matcha shortage; Star Trib headline: Trans genocide!
Thus, I have grave doubts my commentary will be published. And, you know, that’s a darn shame because I worked on it pretty hard, tongue clamped between my teeth, and being the inveterate link clicker and tedious 61-page report reader that I am, I found some interesting stuff in amongst that light reading that the feds put together on Minnesota. Of course, I got a head start on the Minnesota Miracle that is legalized misogyny several posts ago, if you’d like further background.
A quick note about the Minnesota mindset: they are a smug lot based on test scores and 10,000 shiny lakes and the Twins and Mary Tyler Moore and a bunch of other things from the 1970s and 80s that have since faded. Long a Democratic stronghold, Walz and company are bleeding support over their now-glaring wholesale sellout of women and girls, to the extent that there’s grumbling that those wise, kind, progressive misogynists might be holding popular Democratic issues like gun safety and abortion rights hostage to keep the votes and money coming in.
I can’t speak to that gambit but I do know that ten years ago the MSHSL, with the blessing of the Department of Education and our dear Attorney General, chose to obliterate girls’ and women’s Title IX rights, and give them to males, males who already had all the rights in the world. They knew this violated Title IX. They knew that if they took Title IX funds but didn’t abide by the law, they were breaking federal law. The overwhelming evidence then and now is that allowing males in female sports is unfair, unsafe, and undermines the entire purpose of women’s sports. There is a philosophy in sports that if there is even a possibility of unfairness, one should err on the side of caution and not make that change. Knowing all these things, knowing that allowing males in female sports would harm girls and women, the MSHSL made this radical policy change, the likes of which has never been made by that body before or since. Breaking federal law, the casual disregard for ALL girls’ and women’s rights, they were completely willing to do this for what might have been in 2015 one boy. Maybe not even one boy, just on the off chance that a boy sometime in the future might want to participate in girls’ sports, they wanted to make sure he could. That’s how little ALL girls mean in Minnesota, and how very much boys mean. Does that sound like Afghanistan? I should point out that, in 2015, the MSHSL never ever even considered that those very few boys with girl identities could compete in the male category, and that all boys should be expected to be inclusive and kind. Instead, they immediately gave away all girls’ rights so that males could compete in female sports. Many Minnesotans of all persuasions are coming to see that maybe, just maybe, gender ideology is not the cool progressive bin of goods it’s been sold as.
Unfortunately, the Star Tribune has not gotten that memo. Ergo, my letter:
Dear Minnesotans:
As a journalist who’s been writing about women’s sports for decades, and as a middle school coach, I’m sorry to report you’ve been lied to by Attorney General Keith Ellison, by the Minnesota Department of Education, and by the Minnesota State High School League. They’ve been telling you for the last decade that it’s against Minnesota state law to have sex-separated sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms because gender identity is a protected characteristic in the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Nevermind that sex is also a protected characteristic in that state law—they have chosen to prioritize a tiny population of student athletes who feel like they are the opposite sex over 51 percent of the population. And Title IX? Those mendacious people said we don’t have to follow that federal law here in Minnesota, because we’re very progressive and liberal and kind, thus, right, even though a donkey has more rights than girls and women in Minnesota. They didn’t say that last part but that is the natural consequence; if women as a distinct sex class do not have sex-based rights, they have no rights at all.
Of course it’s hogwash that it’s against the law (other than in Afghanistan) to have female-only sports. Of course we have to abide by Title IX. Of course Minnesota has taken the Title IX money, and yet has stripped girls’ and women’s rights enshrined in that law. Of course there are consequences for that ten-year violation.
How was the MDE and the MSHSL able to pull off this rights evisceration in plain sight? As I mentioned, dishonesty played a key role, combined with the fact most citizens assume that lawmakers and the Attorney General know the law and will abide by it. And they cannot, under any circumstances, wrap their minds around the idea that the Department of Education and the State High School League, those shepherds of children, would knowingly give away all girls’ sex-based rights. It’s just too outrageous. Good people of Minnesota assume they’re missing something.
Turns out, they’re not missing anything. Minnesota is a massive, misogynistic mess. The press release sent by the U.S. Department of Education announcing Minnesota’s violation of Title IX contains a link to a 61-page Noncompliance Finding detailing just how noncompliant, how willing to violate girls’ rights, organizations tasked with that very thing have been.
First things first, the report stated, “Title IX prohibits recipients from creating special exemptions allowing trans-identifying students to compete on opposite-sex teams or use opposite-sex sensitive spaces.” Oops.
But many Minnesotans don’t know the oft-referenced Minnesota Human Rights Act that supposedly makes it unlawful to have sex-separated sports has several Exemptions for single-sex sports: “in athletic programs operated by educational institutions or public services and designed for participants 12 years old or older or in the 7th grade or above, it is not an unfair discriminatory practice to restrict membership on an athletic team to participants of one sex whose overall athletic opportunities have previously been limited. [that would be girls]”
So, despite what the MDE and the MSHSL have been saying, it is completely lawful and not discriminatory to have single-sex sports and locker rooms.
The MSHSL told the federal Office of Civil Rights (OCR) that despite knowing that male students are participating in girls’ sports, they do not collect information on the number of male students participating, nor have they ever tracked “adverse impacts on female athletes regarding participation, competitive outcomes, potential awards or visibility to colleges.” It’s almost as if they don’t want to know that information, and they certainly don’t want Minnesotans to know that information.
While the MDE and the MSHSL have been gaslighting girls as to the sex of males with girl identities, and shaming them for feeling uncomfortable sharing their spaces, Reem Alsalem, the Special Rapporteur for the UN on Violence Against Women and Girls found that “policies requiring female student athletes to undress or use the bathroom in the presence of male student athletes causes distress in women and girls, violates their right to privacy, and can deny women equal access to benefits of educational programs and activities.”
The noncompliance report included some fun data on the dates various boys’ and girls’ programs were established:
Boys’ Alpine Skiing was first sanctioned by the MSHSL in 1932; Girls’ Alpine Skiing in 1976
Boys’ basketball was first sanctioned by the MSHSL in 1913; Girls’ basketball in 1974:
Boys’ Cross Country was first sanctioned by the MSHSL in 1943; Girls’ Cross Country in 1975
Boys’ Golf was first sanctioned by the MSHSL in 1943; Girls’ Golf in 1977
Boys’ Hockey was first sanctioned by the MSHSL in 1945; Girls’ Hockey in 1995
All of this to show why Title IX and sex-separated sports were necessary, and are still necessary to provide equal opportunities for girls. But as of 2015, the MSHSL “opened up” girls’ sports to males, effectively eliminating girls’ sports. It doesn’t matter if there is one boy or 100 or 1000, if girls’ sports is open to boys, it’s mixed sex sports—girls’ sports no longer exist. And for those who insist on bleating that “it’s only a few,” stop. By minimizing the number of males in girls’ sports, you admit that it’s wrong. If it was right, no one would care how many there were. And secondly, simply having a policy that allows any male to self-identify into girls’ sports affects all girls, about 118.000 of them. It tells them they are not worthy of their own sports or spaces.
And on page 41 of the report are instances of males who have participated on girls’ teams in Minnesota, when, in every instance, a boys’ team was offered. This one is particularly interesting:
“On [redacted content], the MSHSL received correspondence from the Activities Coordinator at [redacted content] informing the MSHSL that a male student who identifies as female would be playing in the girls’ lacrosse program. The MSHSL had a lacrosse program available for boys. That same male student was also competing on the [redacted content] boys’ swimming team.”
The MSHSL was willing to violate all girls’ Title IX rights for a boy whose girl identity did not seem to be persistent, consistent, or strongly held.
So yes, women and girls are entitled to sex-based sports and spaces as encoded in Title IX. Even in Minnesota.
It is so sad that so many people hate girls and women and are not afraid to show it.
Sarah, great article. Good luck getting it published, hopefully without the editorial board deciding what they think it should say. 😊