An IPSOS poll last summer showed that 63% of respondents opposed permitting transgender female students from competing on women’s or girls’ sports teams.

Meanwhile, a recent survey by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute found that 64% of respondents believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases - just 9% say it should be illegal in all cases.

Ideally, the U.S. Congress would act to ensure women’s right to reasonable abortion and female-only sports teams but it has not. Instead, the issues are being pushed into the federal court system by male-dominated special interest groups, to be decided mainly by male judges.

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Abortion - One Man

It seems almost unreal that an individual male judge in Texas is contemplating overturning the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone, a widely-available, 23-year-old abortion drug that basically prevents a cluster of cells from forming into a fetus.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former GOP Pres. Donald Trump, is ruling in a case brought by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal advocacy group based in Scottsdale, AZ, that says it is committed to protecting the sanctity of life.

The group claims the FDA never adequately evaluated the safety of the drug, which causes cramping and bleeding in the course of expelling the pregnancy. Nevermind that the drug has been used safely for decades.

Judge Kacsmaryk may issue a preliminary injunction ordering the FDA to withdraw its approval of the drug or wait for a full trial.

Men In Female Athletics

Meanwhile, women are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the very future of women’s sports.

It’s patently unfair to force women to compete in athletics against biological men. This is a direct assault on Title IX, which revolutionized female athletics in the 1970s by prohibiting sex discrimination. Men are born with bigger hearts and lungs and stronger bones and easily dominate women’s athletics, denying girls/women hard fought opportunities and rewards.

Democratic Pres. Joe Biden, at the behest of trans rights advocacy groups, unilaterally declared in 2020 that trans women are the legal equivalent of biological women, sparking a nation-wide backlash against transgenders.

West Virginia enacted a law in 2021 to keep biological males who identify as females from competing in women’s athletics in the middle school, high school and college ranks. The American Civil Liberties Union and an LGBT group, Lambda Legal, challenged the law on behalf of an 11-year-old biological male student who sought to compete on a middle school girls’ cross country team.

A lone male, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin (Bill Clinton appointee), initially refused to dismiss the lawsuit but then ruled the law was constitutional. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit voted 2-1 to block the law from taking effect. [In favor were Judges Pamela A. Harris (Barack Obama appointee) and Toby J. Heytens (Joe Biden appointee)]

West Virginia earlier this week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

So women’s Title IX rights are under assault by trans males advocates hiding behind the skirts of a couple of women’s “front” organizations, The Woman’s Sports Foundation and The National Women’s Law Center, that refuse to reveal whether they took funding from trans groups to espouse a position that is adverse to women’s interests.

Other groups, Champion Women, ICONS and Defense of Freedom Institute, have mobilized to fight on behalf of biological women and female athletics.

In summary, what is really amazing is how little influence women have in making policy that directly, personally and intimately affects their lives. Women want reasonable abortion rights and female-only sports teams but we may end up with neither, largely depending upon what men want.