Elissa Slotkin Betrays Her Sex

I’ve never been an athlete. My only experience with organized sports was a brief stint on my high school’s walk-on girls soccer team, and once they decided to make everyone formally try out, I was cut, fair and square. I sucked.

But the opportunity to play on a team like that was made possible by a little policy called Title IX, a federal statute that prohibits sex discrimination in education.

Title IX is the reason so many sports teams for girls exist. Before Title IX, female athletic programs were sparse and underfunded compared to their male counterparts. Title IX mandated that schools provide equal resources and opportunities, including scholarships, to both sexes. It’s why a friend of mine, who did make the cut in high school, ended up going to Ohio State on a full-ride to play soccer. It’s we’ve been able to watch as U.S. female athletes, including Michigan’s own Abby Tamer, dominate in the Olympics.

Title IX made sure we were given the same opportunities as boys to compete and succeed in a league of our own. So why are Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and her party trying to take those opportunities away?

Slotkin was one of hundreds of congressional Democrats who voted last month to support the Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX, which redefines “sex” to include so-called “gender identity.” The rewrite requires publicly funded schools to grant students access to the sports team, restroom, and locker room that corresponds with their “gender identity” rather than their sex.

The reason this is a direct threat to women’s athletics and private spaces is because ours are the only teams and spaces legitimately at risk. Ever hear of a trans-identified female trying out for the men’s high-school football team? That would go just about as well as my soccer team try-out. But there are plenty of examples of trans males earning a spot on a women’s sports team and then dominating the competition.