New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) women’s swimming championships at the University of Maryland last weekend gave pro-trans media outlet Outsports a headline to celebrate: “Trans swimmer Meghan Cortez-Fields ends college career on the podium.”
Most Americans continue to react in disgust to another photo of a smiling male standing proudly with a women’s medal, and the first “out trans” to stand on an NCAA podium since University of Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas in 2022. It’s only evidence of the insanity that continues to infect the wide world of women’s sports.
This year, New Jersey’s Ramapo College, an NCAA Division III institution, moved Cortez-Fields to the women’s roster after he swam three years on its men’s team. From the opening of the season, Cortez-Fields brought glory to the fledgling program, clocking new school record times in the 100-yard butterfly, 50-yard freestyle, and 200-yard individual medley.
Cortez-Fields was quick to credit Thomas with inspiration. Like Thomas, Cortez-Fields is a fully intact male who went through puberty. No amount of hormone suppression will negate that advantage in women’s sport, even if lacking in technique.
Facing pushback early in the season, Ramapo College claimed it was just playing by National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules. It was also giving a very mediocre male swimmer the chance to improve its dismal conference standing in a women’s sport.
New Jersey suffers from the same regional wokeism as Pennsylvania and other Northeast schools. No New England state has passed a law protecting female athletes in their own sports in contrast to the 24 states that have in other regions across the U.S.
Cortez-Fields exits the stage with the glory of standing on the podium and wearing a medal in the women’s category — something that never would have happened on the men’s side. In the process, many female student athletes are left disillusioned and deprived of equal opportunities for success. Every event raced, every record broken, every final entered, and every medal received by Cortez-Fields displaced a female athlete and became a lost opportunity for a female swimmer.
Meanwhile, the NCAA sits idly by pushing the “rules” Ramapo claims, and willfully ignoring the effect of how even one trans-identifying male athlete multiplies discrimination against women.
The Women’s Sports Policy Working Group compiled data to demonstrate just how far the consequences reach. From 2017-2020, two Connecticut trans-identifying males participating in high school girls’ track resulted in female sprinters being denied 93 individual or relay championships, 52 advancements to a championship meet, 39 opportunities to advance to finals, 17 all-New England honors, and 11 meet records. Twenty-three girls were denied the Connecticut State Open team championship.
You don’t need a law degree to understand how forcing a “trans inclusion” agenda that falls squarely on the backs of women athletes is nothing short of sex discrimination and should be a violation of Title IX. So why are female athletes tied up in court trying to prove their case?
Even in the wake of Lia Thomas, the NCAA has doubled down in defending its discriminatory policy. The allegedly Republican President Charlie Baker has publicly refused to consider reversing the 14-year “transgender athlete participation policy” when questioned by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The effects on young female athletes are only mounting as daily media feeds will attest — particularly at the high school level where girl athletes are losing out and getting injured by trans-identifying male athletes taking spots on girls’ teams.
Recently an NCAA Division I Committee member issued the ultimate protest against the NCAA’s injustice by resigning his position. In a letter to Baker, William Bock stated, “The NCAA’s so-called, ‘Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy’ is nothing less than institutionalized discrimination which results in sanctioned cheating. … The NCAA cannot succeed in achieving ethical sport so long as it endorses a policy of discrimination against female student-athletes.”
Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas also made news pushing back against the transgender orthodoxy encouraging Lia Thomas to sue international governing bodies for the chance to compete in this year’s Olympic trials. “It’s not transphobic to say, ‘Let’s inject some common sense here,’” Costas told Bill Maher. He went on to compare trans-identifying male advantage in women’s sports to a heavyweight boxer competing in the welterweight division.
The NCAA bears responsibility for enabling this trans-jectory in women’s college sports, which it’s now forcing into overtime. Institutional discrimination against women athletes has no place in our society, so why are the NCAA and member institutions like Ramapo College getting away with it?
Doreen Denny is senior advisor to Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
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