An American woman athlete who has won 35 titles in cyclocross competitions says she is retiring due to biological men being allowed to compete in the women’s division.
Hannah Arensman shared her decision to retire in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court last week. The brief was on behalf of 67 women athletes, coaches, and parents from sports such as volleyball, disc golf, cycling, track, and more, relating to a case involving the state of West Virginia. The Mountain State is being sued by a transgender over the Save Women’s Sports Act that disallows a transgender’s participation in female athletic competitions.
Arensman decided to retire after finishing fourth place in a grueling December meet, in between a third-place transgender and a fifth-place transgender. The person who took third place was Austin Killips, who has also been accused by witnesses of roughing up Arensman three times during the December race. He has denied doing so, but others say he got physical as he tried to push Arensman off the course.
Cyclocross is a non-Olympic racing format that consists of many laps of a short course that may include pavement, trails, mud, grass, hills, gullies, and obstacles that require the rider to dismount and pack the bike to get around various obstructions.
Arensman said it had “become increasingly discouraging” to train as hard as she does only to lose to someone with an “unfair advantage,”
“I have decided to end my cycling career. At my last race at the recent UCI Cyclocross National Championships in the elite women’s category in December 2022, I came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places. My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race,” she said.
“I feel for young girls learning to compete and who are growing up in a day when they no longer have a fair chance at being the new record holders and champions in cycling,” Arensman wrote in the filing. “I have felt deeply angered, disappointed, overlooked, and humiliated that the rule makers of women’s sports do not feel it is necessary to protect women’s sports to ensure fair competition for women anymore.”
The amicus brief argues that females are uniquely and adversely affected when they are forced to compete against males in sports, and that the psychological, tangible, and long-term harm suffered by females forced to compete against males is irreversible.
“Females are suffering real harm that threatens their right to basic equality and equal opportunity,” the women argue.
But the ACLU and the plaintiff, whose name is protected because he is a minor, say the boy is covered by Title IX, the 1972 law that people like the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska fought for in order to end discrimination against girls and women scholastic athletes. The federal government has been, through regulation, changing the definition of Title IX to include prohibition against gender identity and the Biden Administration intends to publish new rules in May that will protect transgender athletes at the expense of females.
According to the lawsuit filed by the transgender, girls are allowed to play on boys’ teams, but boys are not allowed to play on girls teams, which is not fair.
“So echoing language from Title IX’s implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(b), the Sports Act reiterated that women’s and girls’ sports teams based on ‘competitive skill’ or ‘involv[ing] a contact sport’ should not be open to males, W. VA. CODE § 18-2-25d(c)(2). Instead, male students remain free to play on male or co-ed teams, while female students can play on all teams. Id. § 18-2-25d(c)(3). The Sports Act then drew an administrable line, defining ‘male’ and ‘female’ by looking to the student’s “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Id. § 18-2-25d(b),” the lawsuit says.
Defining male and female by biology violates the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, argues B.P.J. and the ACLU. The district court granted B.P.J.’s request for a preliminary injunction.
In the amicus brief filed by women athletes last week, women runners in Alaska are mentioned as part of the documentation of how females are being bested by biological males in the female divisions:
“Roughly two years ago, the West Virginia Legislature passed H.B. 3293—the Sports Act—to ensure equal opportunities and fair play for all student athletes. In recent years biological males identifying as female have increasingly competed against and beaten biological females in women’s sports events across the country. High-school-girl sprinters in Connecticut, young women swimming in the Ivy League, teen volleyball players in Hawaii, young female runners in Alaska, and student athletes everywhere in between have found themselves falling behind or pushed aside for biologically male athletes,” the women say in support of the Save Women’s Sports Act.
Other groups have filed amicus briefs in this case.
One is from the Women’s Liberation Front (“WoLF”), a non-profit radical feminist organization dedicated to the liberation of women by ending male violence, protecting reproductive sovereignty, preserving woman-only spaces, and abolishing gender and sex discrimination.
“WoLF’s interest in this case stems from its interest in empowering and protecting the safety and privacy of women and girls and preserving women’s sex-based civil rights. Those rights are threatened when court decisions and agency policies embrace the vague concept of ‘gender identity’ in a manner that overrides statutory and Constitutional protections that are based explicitly on ‘sex.’ If, as a matter of law, ‘sex’ is no longer understood to be an immutable characteristic, but instead merely a subjective self-declared and mutable ‘identity’ – then the ability to protect women and girls from sex-based discrimination is greatly diminished,” the feminist group wrote.
The Alliance Defending Freedom’s amicus brief can be read at this link.
“For the first time, the Supreme Court has an opportunity to protect fairness in women’s sports from today’s threats. It’s time for the Court to follow biological reality and ensure equal opportunities for female athletes, Alliance Defending Freedom said.
The increase in transgenders taking over women’s competitions was evidenced again last week, when transgender cyclist Tiffany Thomas, 47, won the Randall’s Island Crit (New York City) women’s division. Thomas started bike racing in 2018, when she was already in her 40s. Since then, Thomas has had at least 20 first-place finishes in women’s cycling divisions.
