A girls high school basketball team in Vermont forfeited a tournament after refusing to compete against a team that included a transgender player.
Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) was scheduled to compete against Long Trail School on Feb. 21, but the school pulled out of the tournament due to the male-bodied athlete on Long Trail’s team, CNN reported.
“We withdrew from the tournament because we believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players,” Vicky Fogg, the head of MVCS, said in a statement.
“Allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general,” Fogg added.
Reportedly, Long Trail’s team has been advancing in the tournament.
This week, Townhall reported how Rep. Greg Stuebe (R-FL) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) legislation, the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023” would prohibit male-bodied transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.
“Throughout my coaching career, I saw the incomparable success of Title IX and the educational and personal opportunities sports have provided to millions of female athletes. For more than 50 years, this law has empowered young women to grow personally, compete professionally, and receive scholarships to further their education,” Sen. Tuberville told Townhall.
“The positive impacts of a fair playing field in women’s sports are unmatched, but the Biden administration is forcing female athletes to the sidelines by allowing biological males to compete where they do not belong,” he continued. “It’s unfair, it’s unsafe, and it’s wrong. We cannot stand by and let girls and women in sports lose to the radical left’s agenda.”
Last month, Townhall interviewed Riley Gaines, a former swimmer at the University of Kentucky who competed against Will “Lia” Thomas, the biological male swimmer who began identifying as transgender and competing on the women’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania. At the NCAA championships, Gaines and Thomas tied in a race, but Thomas got to take the trophy home.
“Within the past year, in terms of progress, there has not been a clear solution to the problem [of transgender athletes] at hand. There has still been an influx of biological men competing in women’s sports,” Gaines, who is a spokeswoman at the Independent Women’s Forum, told Townhall.
"I think the Lia Thomas situation, bringing this to the national stage, opened a door. People see an opportunity when they see this, and they’re willing to take advantage of it. At the expense of, of course, female athletes,” she added.
“If this continues, it’s a slippery slope. It’s truly only a matter of time before one transgender athlete winning a national title in the women’s category becomes three and five and 10 and so on,” Gaines concluded. “I think truthfully it will become…the integrity of women’s sports will be lost.”