The Progress of Women
Contributed by Marilyn Bennett
This past Fall, my granddaughter played in sectional volleyball and really pushed herself to the limit. She is now on the basketball team and traveling all around Alaska. She is only fourteen and in Junior High so I am excited to see how she will do in High School sports. It is particularly important to me to see how far girls and women sports have advanced since my childhood.
When I was in high school back in the 50's we had No sports for girls. I grew up with three brothers in a neighborhood of boys. We played basketball in our driveway, baseball & tennis in the park and I was never left out. However, in high school, I could only be a cheerleader while my brothers had the full range of sports. It never seemed fair to me. Interesting to note that in 1920 women got the right to vote and 50 years later in 1972, Title 9 was passed which gave girls the right to play sports in high school on an equal basis as the boys.
Then, another 50 years later in 2022, Lia Thomas became the first transgender to win an NCAA Division 1 title in the Woman's 500-yard freestyle swimming event. One hundred years of progress for women to be taken away by a person who was welcomed into this world by his parents as a boy. He began swimming at age 5 and competed in high school swimming as a boy and was 6th in the state high school swimming championships for boys.
In 2017 he swam for the men's team at the U of Pennsylvania and in the 2018–2019 season he competed in the men's team and ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle. In his junior year he decided to become a woman and by the conclusion of Thomas's swimming career at U Penn in 2022, Thomas's rank had moved from 65th on the men's team to 1st on the women's team in the 500-yard freestyle, and 554th on the men's team to fifth on the women's team in the 200-yard freestyle. Thomas planned to swim for the 2024 Summer Olympic trials as a woman, but the International Swimming Federation declared Thomas ineligible as he had gone through puberty as a boy.
We are in a confusing time as the rules for transgenders in sports can vary from state to state. Here in Alaska a transgender can only participate in women's sports if he/she started the transmutation before puberty. This new phase of gender confusion seems to be a growing trend in our society. This should not be political. If a person wishes to change their identity that should be his or her own private decision as most of us want everyone to be able to live their life as they see fit. However, when one individual's decision impacts others it deserves a second look.
It really hurts to think that the time I put in marching, writing, and speaking up for girls’ sports should all be swept away today. To see this huge swimmer looming over the female competitors and winning the woman's title is disappointing on many levels. I am a grandmother now and watching my granddaughters traveling throughout the state of Alaska competing with other girls. It is such fun to go to their games and see how fulfilling participating on team sport can be for a young woman.
My mother was an adult before it became legal for women to vote. I was an adult before girls could participate in competitive sports in high school. I was in my 50's when we achieved equal pay in the workforce. Now in my old age I do not wish to sit back and see women's sports taken over by men. I fought the men who thought I was too fragile to participate in sports. I fought the men who were paid more than me for the same job and I will fight these men who failed at the man game and want to win in sports over my granddaughters. You may call them transgenders and feel bad for their confusion but don't punish our girls out of compassion for someone who had just found a new way to cheat.
Half a century ago I marched for equal rights for women. Ten years ago, I celebrated how far women had come. Now I ask you to join me in the fight for the future generations of women in sports. Whether it is my granddaughter or yours, we must not let men take away the first-place trophy that took women 100 years to win.
Join with me to continue the fight for our Girls!!!