On Jan. 13, female athletes will rally at the Supreme Court as it considers whether women can form their own sports leagues. Three months ago, the high court also heard arguments in a different legal matter — my case against Colorado. The legal details differ, but the underlying debate is the same: Is biological sex real, and should our laws be anchored in biological reality or in perceived identity?
For those unfamiliar with my case, Colorado picked a side in this debate by passing a law banning licensed counselors like me from counseling minors to help them regain comfort or achieve peace with their body, even if that’s their chosen goal. Meanwhile, the law allows counselors to encourage minors experiencing discomfort with their bodies to reject their biology and embrace gender transition, which often leads to drugs and surgeries.
Colorado has acknowledged that it has no proof that my counseling causes harm. Plenty of evidence indicates that encouraging kids toward sex-rejecting drugs and surgeries does cause harm. More people are detransitioning, saying that they wish they had good counseling anchored in ethics like “do no harm” and consent to help them comprehend and address their struggles before being encouraged to modify their bodies to resolve psychological maladies.
The United States’ recent evidence-based report affirms the “growing international concern about pediatric medical transition.” More and more European countries have been doing the research and have begun to restrict the use of these drugs and procedures on minors.
In this respect, the science confirms what we already know: Our embodied existence undeniably matters.
So, too, in the sporting arena. No girl should be displaced from a podium, bumped from a team, or made to feel uncomfortable in her own locker room by a male athlete. Yet, we continue to hear stories of this happening nationwide.
Hannah Arensman, a lifelong cyclist who retired in 2023 at the age of 25 because of her unwillingness to compete against men, said it had been “increasingly discouraging to train as hard as I do only to have to lose to a man with the unfair advantage of an androgenized body that intrinsically gives him an obvious advantage over me, no matter how hard I train. … I have felt deeply angered, disappointed, overlooked and humiliated that the rulemakers of women’s sports do not feel it is necessary to protect women’s sports to ensure fair competition for women anymore.”
Chelsea Mitchell told the 2024 United Nations Human Rights Council, “With every loss, it gets harder and harder to try again. That’s a devastating experience. It tells me that I’m not good enough; that my body isn’t good enough; and that no matter how hard I work, I am unlikely to succeed, because I’m a woman.”
Paula Scanlan, a University of Pennsylvania swimmer from 2023-2025, claimed her university gaslit her team to accept sharing a locker room with a man. The women were told that, if they had a problem with it, “they were the problem.” The university effectively silenced the women and made them feel like their “feelings didn’t matter.” That was heartbreaking to Scanlan, a “sexual assault survivor,” who said the policy “completely ignored” the experiences of women like her.
Women are telling us that they are being pressured into conformity with things they don’t believe, leaving them in a suppressive environment where they are shamed for their discomfort.
Faced with these experiences and backed by science and common sense that biology matters in sports, organizations and states began to step up. World Rugby, World Boxing, World Rowing, International Skiing, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, USA Powerlifting and many others designated women’s sports for women only. Twenty-seven states passed laws doing the same. Naturally, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union challenged these laws, leaving two states — Idaho and West Virginia — to defend their laws all the way to the Supreme Court.
Alliance Defending Freedom, the law firm that represents me in my free-speech case against Colorado, joined in that defense, representing several female athletes and serving as co-counsel with West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador. I’m proud to stand with them as ADF defends truth in the sports arena and in the counselor’s office.
Gender theory mislabeled as “science” leaves real victims in its wake. In the three pending cases before the Supreme Court, I’m hopeful the court acknowledges this truth and stands to protect women and girls.
