The sexual abuse of children is one of the most evil acts that anyone can commit. That is why accusations must not be made casually—this is serious business. Yet that is exactly what is happening when Democrats charge that enforcing norms to ensure that males cannot compete against females in sports leads to child sexual abuse. That is a lie.
On March 3, Democrats in the Senate voted against “The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” effectively killing it (60 votes were needed and the 51 mustered by the Republicans were not enough). The bill sought to amend Title IX to prohibit schools from allowing boys and men to compete with girls and women in athletic programs.
Common sense dictates that because males are, on average, stronger and faster than females, there should be separate sports for males and females. Common decency dictates that males and females should have separate locker rooms and shower facilities. But common sense and common decency are not commonplace among Democrats.
It is bad enough to allow men to crash women’s sports—all in the name of showing tolerance for transgender individuals—but it is worse when some of those who support this travesty maintain that stopping them from doing so will cause the sexual abuse of minors.
When the House took up this bill, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it the “Republican child predator empowerment act.” He explained that the bill “risks unleashing child predators on the children of America in the sports context.” Similarly, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the bill allows “genital examination into little girls in this country.”
Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern claimed the bill is an example of Republicans’ “creepy obsession with your kids’ private parts.” Vermont Rep. Becca Balint said that the “logical conclusion” of the bill is to violate the bodies of young girls. More recently, Rep. Jennifer McClellan went even further claiming “the only way” to enforce this bill is “to pull children’s pants down to determine what sex they are.”
When the Senate voted on the bill, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said that because the bill would ban male school athletes from competing with females, the law would “allow anyone to subject girls to invasive physical exams just because of the way they look,” leading to “an increased risk for abuse and harassment.” Sen. Dick Durbin agreed, saying the bill would allow “the right to physically inspect a girl or a young woman if the other opposing team accuses them of being transgender.”
Not one of these persons offered a scintilla of evidence to back up their outrageous claims, and no one from the media challenged them. However, they unwittingly undercut their position that self-identification determines one’s sex: if that were the case, why would the Democrats argue that “the only way” to determine one’s sex is to pull down their pants?
We decided to check the links that Google AI provides as evidence that banning males from competing with females in sports leads to child sexual abuse. What we found was another unsupported assertion. Florida Rep. Jessica Miranda said the bill “would require children to have genital exams to play high school sports,” claiming this was “nothing short of state-sanctioned sexual abuse.” So much for AI: This is not evidence—it is an opinion.
It is not as though evidence is lacking altogether. Roughly half the states have laws ensuring that males cannot compete against females, and as a result not one of them has experienced child sexual abuse. That’s because most of them insist on just one criterion: provide a birth certificate. This is true in Florida, as well, making mince meat out of Rep. Miranda’s bogus theory.
Democrats need to stop making false accusations about child sexual abuse and start explaining why they want to destroy women’s sports and women’s privacy.
Contact Minority Leader Hakeen Jeffries’ chief of staff, Tasia Jackson: tasia.jackson@mail.house.gov
