Earlier this month, Missouri became the 22nd state in three years to enact protections to preserve the integrity of women’s sports. This kind of swift, nationwide legislative change is nearly unprecedented, and it demonstrates resounding support for these types of laws.
But while state legislators have stepped up to protect female athletes, members of Congress—in partnership with radical activists—are doing everything they can to roll those protections back. Last week, a group of senators and representatives introduced the deceptively named “Equality Act.” Proponents claim that the Equality Act advances legal equality, but—as we’ve seen from similar policies across the country—the exact opposite is true. In fact, the act will encourage discrimination against women while erasing critical protections for medical workers, creative professionals, and more.
For example, the Equality Act’s language adding “gender identity” to federal nondiscrimination law would allow males who identify as female to compete in women’s sports. A similar policy has already wreaked havoc in Connecticut for girls.
Consider the case of track athlete Chelsea Mitchell. Chelsea was the fastest girl in four state championship events. But she walked away from those races without any gold medals to show for her hard-fought effort because the championship titles were taken by males competing in the female category. “It was really heartbreaking to lose those awards,” Chelsea said, “and to know that, possibly, girls all across the country will lose out on awards like that.”
It shouldn’t surprise us that some liberal feminists, such as tennis star and 18-time Women’s Grand Slam winner Martina Navratilova, and feminist organizations like Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), oppose such anti-woman policies. Broad support for female athletes is further reflected in polling from WoLF, which shows that fewer than 20 percent of Americans agree that males should be permitted to compete in the female category.
However, the Equality Act doesn’t only hurt female athletes. It also endangers women in overnight shelters by forcing the shelters to admit males who identify as female. Such an incident occurred in Alaska, where the city of Anchorage tried to use a similar city ordinance to force Downtown Hope Center’s women’s overnight shelter to allow men who identify as women to sleep mere feet from vulnerable women, many of whom had recently survived trafficking, domestic violence, or other abuse by men.
One homeless woman at the shelter testified in court that she would rather sleep in the Alaskan wilderness than sleep near a man. “If the Hope Center were forced to let any biological man into the women’s shelter, I would leave even if it meant sleeping in the woods,” she said. “I would be afraid that I was going to be raped again. It would trigger a PTSD reaction for me.”
In addition, just as language prohibiting “discrimination” based on “gender identity” will almost certainly be construed to harm women and girls, new rules in the Equality Act prohibiting “discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition” would likely be construed to include abortion. That would undermine the rights of medical professionals by forcing them to assist with abortions in violation of their conscience. If the activists who support the Equality Act wish to continue calling themselves “pro-choice,” they must respect the choices of our medical professionals to choose which procedures they can and can’t perform in accordance with the oath each took to “do no harm.”
Similar laws to the Equality Act have consistently been used to punish religious creative professionals who gladly serve all people but who can’t express messages contrary to their core convictions. For example, a Colorado anti-discrimination law similar to the Equality Act has been used repeatedly against cake artist Jack Phillips in an attempt to force him to violate his religious beliefs.
Tolerance is a two-way street, and in a diverse society like ours, we all must respect the rights of those with whom we disagree. The Equality Act would do the opposite. It would undermine true equality by harming women, medical workers, creative professionals, and others while violating the First Amendment freedoms that are precious to us all. Americans should encourage their representatives in Congress to vote “no” on this dangerous legislation because of its radical, far-reaching consequences.
