Aderholt: Woke liberal culture wants to destroy the fabric of sports

There are few things in everyday life that teach our kids life lessons better than sports. As they grow up and play for different teams they learn about commitment, hard work, how to win with grace, and how to pick yourself up and move on after a loss. These lessons stay with them forever, and as a parent I know how valuable those experiences are.

This is why we have to ensure sports, especially high school sports, remain fair and free of political influence. When Title IX was enacted, it did just that for female athletes. It gave them equal opportunity to compete and provided protection for girls’ sports across the country. Title IX also created more pathways for girls to become college athletes, giving many the collegiate chance they wouldn’t have had without sports.

But now, woke liberal culture has set aim on destroying the fabric of sports by pushing for transgender athletes to compete against girls. Across the country more and more states are passing laws allowing this to happen, and it is taking away opportunities and equality for females.

In Connecticut, two transgender track runners that are biologically male won 15 high school state championships while racing against biological females. In a mixed martial arts fight, a transgender fighter that is biologically male fought a biological female, winning by nearly killing the female fighter and fracturing her skull. And now, a transgender weightlifter who competed against men until 2013 will compete against women in the Olympics, which they qualified for by outlifting all the female competitors by a whopping 40 pounds.

The problems here are obvious. Not only are opportunities to get scholarships and accolades diminished, but the safety and wellbeing of these girls is at stake. It’s hard enough staying healthy while competing in physical sports, but when the opponent can take you down with ease that task becomes nearly impossible.

Additionally, one can see how allowing transgender athletes to compete against girls ultimately diminishes the values learned from equal competition. Rather than learning lessons about life, they will learn that the political agenda of the far-left trumps fair play, and that they will use people as pawns in order to reshape society as they see fit. The confidence, trust, and toughness girls are supposed to learn through sports will be a thing of the past.

Those on the left will try and downplay all of this and say it’s really not a big deal, and this is just a “culture war” that conservatives created. But the fact of the matter is this: girls are now at risk because far left policies are eroding our values.

And this argument really has nothing to do with transgender rights or gender dysphoria. Simply put, we shouldn’t be imposing a sports ceiling that will make girls feel less valuable. If we are going to allow biological males to compete against biological females, we might as well tell young women, “don’t even bother.”

Just watch the Olympics this year and see for yourself. Witness what happens when a transgender athlete competes in weightlifting against biological females. And see how the left will celebrate it all and tell our kids that it was heroic.