(LifeSiteNews) – A group of Colorado school districts reached a settlement with the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) under which they will be able to reserve female sports and locker rooms for actual girls without harm to their ability to continue participating in state athletics.
Colorado Public Radio reported that Colorado Springs-area school District 49 adopted a policy in May limiting school athletic teams, locker rooms, and travel sleeping accommodations to actual members of a team’s designated sex.
Joined by several like-minded districts, they also sued the CHSAA, Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD), and Colorado Attorney General Phillip Weiser over state “anti-discrimination” laws and CHSAA rules asserting that gender-confused individuals must be recognized and accommodated as members of the opposite sex. The suit argued that such mandates are invalid under the prevailing federal interpretation of Title IX as referring strictly to biological sex rather than “gender identity.”
Under the settlement, the schools will face no penalties or sanctions from CHSAA for their biology-based policies or for public statements recognizing the innate advantages of biological males. In return, the plaintiffs dismiss their claims against the CHSAA and will pay the body $60,000 for legal expenses. Notably, the settlement only resolves the CHSAA’s role in the dispute; the suit against the CCRD and Weiser’s office remains ongoing.
CHSAA claimed the lawsuit was unnecessary because it had never penalized districts over such policies in the first place and the plaintiffs had not inquired about the situation before suing. But District 49 superintendent Peter Hilts is celebrating nonetheless.
“CHSAA deserves credit for doing the right thing,” he said. “By reaching this agreement, they’ve recognized the need to protect fairness in competition and privacy in school facilities for our female athletes. We appreciate their willingness to engage in thoughtful dialogue and reach a resolution that puts students first.”
Mandatory inclusion of gender-confused individuals in opposite-sex sports is promoted as a matter of “inclusivity,” but critics note that indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities.
Critics also argue that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, or changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives potential male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status.
There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be fully negated by hormone suppression.
In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men (do) not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone therapy;” therefore, “the advantage to transwomen (biological men) afforded by the (International Olympic Committee) guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”
Even the left-wing United Nations has acknowledged as much, via an October 2024 report by Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem that found more than 600 female athletes around the world have lost more than 890 medals to men in 29 sports as of March 2024. “To avoid the loss of a fair opportunity, males must not compete in the female categories of sport,” the report concluded.
In America since the 1980s, more than 1,941 gold medals in female events that would have gone to female athletes have instead been claimed by men identifying as “trans women,” and along with them more than $493,173 in prize money across more than 10,067 amateur and professional events, according to data compiled by He Cheated and reviewed by Concerned Women for America.
