Tipsheet

USA Today Blasted for Editing Column by Girl Forced to Compete Against Males. Here's What They Changed.

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  May 27, 2021 7:30 AM

USA Today is facing backlash for editing a column from the “fastest” girl in Connecticut who wrote about how unfair it was to be competing in track against biologically male athletes.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Chelsea Mitchell in Soule v. Connecticut Association of School, said the column first ran on May 22 but on May 25 USA Today issued an editor’s note at the top and changed the word “male” throughout the piece.

“This column has been updated to reflect USA TODAY’s standards and style guidelines. We regret that hurtful language was used,” the editors wrote, referencing Mitchell describing her transgender competitors as male. 

For example, in the original column Mitchell wrote: “Instead, all I can think about is how all my training, everything I’ve done to maximize my performance, might not be enough, simply because there’s a runner on the line with an enormous physical advantage: a male body."

It now reads: “Instead, all I can think about is how all my training, everything I’ve done to maximize my performance, might not be enough, simply because there’s a transgender runner on the line with an enormous physical advantage.”

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These changes have been made wherever Mitchell used the word “male,” prompting backlash on social media.