Newsletter - August 2023

 The history of humanity is also a history of all of the causes that have united people as they strived to achieve specific goals.  One of those causes is the women’s rights movement.  

Women’s rights and their place in society is different throughout history.  In some places women were revered and functioned as leaders. There have been famous women leaders who greatly affected the history of their country.  However, in many places women were second class citizens only good for child bearing and very hard work in the home or the fields.

Let’s look at the history of women in the United States.  Laws regarding ownership of property varied in different places in America.  In some places, a woman’s property became her husband’s when she married.  Women did not have the right to vote.  They were hardly represented in some professional occupations.

The battle for women’s full legal rights in the United States became major news by the late 18th century when Susan B.  Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton led the way in the fight for the right to vote for women.  The United States Senate voted on giving women the right to vote in 1919 when Republicans regained control of the Senate.  The vote resulted in the 19th Amendment to our constitution.  The Democrats had refused to allow a vote in the Senate all the years they had controlled the Senate.

Women made progress in equality as laws changed regarding property ownership, financial independence and employment opportunities.

Title IX was a law passed which gave women’s sports a legal position and the chance to excel in a sport with no laws being a hinderance.  Title IX aimed to prevent sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal funding.

Title IX

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”     1972

In 2016 the Office of Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) on transgender rights, requiring schools to allocate access to sex-segregated facilities such as bathrooms, showers and dorm rooms on the basis of students’ gender identity rather than their biological sex.

Now, we are faced with the situation of men who state they have transitioned to women and are therefore competing against women in various sports.  This transition has not resulted in these “women” losing their upper body strength which is one of the distinct differences between the sexes.  Men who have transitioned do not lose upper body strength.

Controversy has erupted in a number of states over whether transgender students should be allowed to participate on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.  The Biden administration has said it will issue a separate Title IX rule specifically addressing athletics.

Where does all of this “transitioning” leave women’s sports?  It appears that women who have been working and training in their sport have been eliminated.  Winning a swimming match against a 6 foot plus male who now states he is a woman is going to be very, very difficult. 

The purpose of Title IX was to give women a fair chance in the world of competitive sports. With the new development in competitive sports, women are losing out on scholarships, salaries and a career.  It is noteworthy that many of the transgender athletes who competed as men did not do well in those competitive sports.

It is important to remember that when laws are passed, especially federal laws, a multitude of rules and regulations follow.  Bureaucrats always want to make sure that they have covered every contingency.  So it was with Title IX.

Title IX opened the doors of educational opportunity to women.  It has been noted that women not only gained educational equality with men.  In many fronts they surpassed men by a large and growing margin.

In 2011, sexual harassment became the most pressing controversy.  During the Obama administration, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education listed detailed sexual-harassment rules and started hundreds of well-publicized investigations of colleges.  Some of these investigations have dragged on for years.  In 2016, OCR issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) on transgender rights, requiring schools to allocate access to sex-segregated facilities such as bathrooms, showers and dorm rooms on the basis of students’ gender identity rather than their biological sex. 

The Trump administration rescinded the rules put forth by the Office of Civil Rights.

Unfortunately, this move to remove any difference between men and women has of course showed up in other areas.

Male and female entertainers have been known as actors and actresses for many years.  It was determined a few years ago (by who you may ask) that all entertainers would be known as actors.  Does that mean that the female gender has just been erased?  Is it really terrible to be referred to as an actress?  Does only using the term actor eliminate gender for all people involved in the dramatic profession?  Are we all now committed to gender fluidity?

A very important and tragic result of gender fluidity (deciding what sex you are) is what is going on in the prison system.  Male Inmates who declare that they are female are being placed in women’s prisons.  Female inmates and female prison personnel are being attacked and sometimes raped by these male inmates. Please note that this situation does not seem to matter to our elected officials.