ADF International
CV NEWS FEED // During an October 16 General Assembly, several female athletes and human rights leaders called for the United Nations to protect women’s sports from transgender men.
Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, U.S. collegiate athlete Lainey Armistead, and ADF CEO Kristen Waggoner, were among those who represented the women’s sports community, according to an Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) news release.
Armistead, like several other female athletes, has filed a lawsuit calling for protection for women’s sports after witnessing the harm caused by biological males playing on women’s athletic teams. The lawsuit has been appealed to the Supreme Court for a decision.
Armistead said in the news release that a male playing on a woman’s sports team at her alma mater, Western Virginia State University, has “already displaced nearly 300 girls.”
“And that’s just one athlete,” she emphasized. “I’m here today because we’ve all seen what happens when males are allowed to compete on women’s teams … it’s demoralizing and unfair, and just plain wrong.”
Davies, a three-time Olympian, called on the UN to protect women’s sports before the situation becomes worse.
“I don’t know a single person that wants to exclude anybody. However, we do want to see women have fair and safe sport,” she said. “And we cannot wait until a woman is seriously injured or worse still, killed, to be able to deal with the science and the obvious and the common sense.”
Waggoner also spoke to the UN assembly, providing a legal perspective on men in women’s sports.
“International law has long recognized equality and non-discrimination — including on the basis of sex — as a fundamental pillar of human rights. Unfortunately, many countries have fallen short of their human rights obligations toward women and girls in sports,” she stated, later adding:
Our hope at ADF is that the international community will turn its attention to this critical issue — ensuring women and girls can pursue sporting opportunities should they desire AND protecting female athletes from harm and indignity. Our plea to the world is to learn from the mistakes that have been made — and that are now being corrected — so that your daughters can walk into a future of fair and safe sports.
Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, noted at the assembly that allowing males to play in women’s sports means that female athletes are now “experiencing new forms of discrimination.” She argued that letting men play on women’s teams “undermines” women’s “access to equal opportunities and the right to participate in safety, dignity, and fairness.”
“In fact, I do not hesitate to say that the failure to protect the female category is one of the most egregious forms of violence against women and girls as the essence of being ‘female’ is willfully pushed aside and ignored resulting in distress, pain, humiliation, frustration, and anger at the loss of dignity and sheer injustice confronted,” she added.
Alsalem has also publicly opposed the Biden administration’s revisions to Title IX, arguing that redefining ‘women’ to include males who identify as women creates opportunities for female athletes to face psychological, emotional, and physical harm.
