Unfair Play: Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports (DOGE Subcommittee Hearing)
Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations
2025-05-07
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Source: Congress.gov
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Transcript
This hearing of the subcommittee on delivering on government efficiency will come to order. Welcome everyone. Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any time. I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement. Good afternoon and welcome everyone. I would like to start by playing a video of why we are here today. So if we can go ahead and play that please. Where's our digital team? Where's our digital team? Here we go. to ban men from playing in women's sports. There are only two sexes, male and female, and we are not going to tolerate biological men competing in sports or impeding in private spaces for women like myself or you. A female fencer was given the ultimate punishment for refusing to compete against a biological man. At the Portland Interscholastic League Championships, a trans sophomore runner from McDaniel High School. And Tom is pulling away. Men should not be hurting women. They're hurting women very badly. They're hurting women. I was severely injured in a high school volleyball game by a transgender athlete on the opposing team. Anyone who disobeys federal law will be either prosecuted, sued, or say goodbye to your federal funding. Female athletes should never be forced to compete against mentally ill biological men who parade around in women's clothes. But we'll hear from witnesses today who had to face off against biological male competitors.
This led one to suffer a life-altering physical injury from a volleyball spike to her head. The other was thrown out of a recent fencing competition for refusing to compete against a man. Why is this happening when we have federal laws on the books intended to foster women's sports? Back in 1972, Congress adopted Title IX to create and protect equal athletic opportunity for girls and women in schools and colleges. Congress included similar language in legislation governing other amateur sports competitions. The law chartering the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, for instance, authorizes the Olympic Committee to recognize and empower national governing bodies to oversee individual sports on a national level. That includes determining how athletes are chosen to represent the U.S. in the Olympic Games and other international competitions. These NGBs, such as USA Fencing, have statutory duties and obligations, including promoting equal athletic opportunity for women, biological women. Specifically, NGBs are to provide equitable support and encouragement for participation by women where separate programs for male and female athletes are conducted on a national basis. Yet, USA Fencing makes a mockery out of women's fencing by allowing biological males to compete in its women's fencing competitions.
We understand there are roughly 200 biological males competing in the USA Fencing women's division. This includes males who have won national titles and represented the U.S. in international competition in women's fencing. We subpoenaed the board chair of USA Fencing, Damian LaFelt, to appear here today. We did so because the board is responsible for setting USA fencing policies and for ensuring those policies comply with federal law. At a recent board meeting where Mr. LaFelt presided, the board determined it would change its policy on transgender athletes if and only if forced to do so. Some science shows that men have numerous physical advantages over women that create unfair and potentially dangerous competitions. Such physical advantages are significant in fencing. According to a letter we received from USA Fencing Board member Andre Giva, a coach of Olympians and world champions, Quote, transgender women fencers have significant advantages in women's competitions, he writes, citing advantages in body size, reach, shoulder width, muscle development, explosive strength, and recovery capacity. And a United Nations report issued last year finds that testosterone suppression does not eliminate the advantage of biological males to avoid the loss of a fair opportunity. It concludes, males must not compete in female categories of sport. But it's not surprising that the USA fencing policy on trans competitors ignores the science. The board is not shy about putting politics ahead of the sport, ahead of women, and ahead of the law. In selecting sites for its national fencing events, for instance,
The board policy is to avoid states whose laws and policies on LGBTQ rights and abortion it opposes. It uses equality maps to determine which states to blacklist from its competitions and which states to favor. This ends up favoring a lot of blue states and harming a lot of red ones.
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