DV Journal

As the chair of Protect Bucks PAC, I’m deeply committed to championing a cause that strikes at the very core of issues facing Bucks County school districts – the fairness and integrity of girls’ sports and the safety and privacy of female athletes.

Our collective efforts have given rise to our Petition to Protect Girls’ Sports, a call to action for our school boards to safeguard girls’ sports and the privacy of our female athletes. This petition underscores why we believe this issue is of paramount importance. In a few weeks, we have collected 1500 signatures in support of this cause, and counting.

Protect Bucks PAC is 100 percent women-founded and women-led. Each of us shares a meaningful personal connection to girls’ sports. We are mothers, daughters, grandmothers, sisters, and friends, and many of us were once young athletes ourselves. These experiences have shaped our understanding of the profound importance of fairness in sports. We know that participation in athletics is key to developing confidence and independence for young women, and that excelling opens doors to opportunities that would otherwise remain out of reach. The advancement of women has come too far to allow girls to be held back by political ideologies.

Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), responsible for overseeing school sports, has relinquished its responsibility to ensure fair competition in girls’ sports by deferring decisions about who can compete to each individual school district. This has resulted in a lack of consistency in policies across our county and across our state. It means that the rules might change depending on where a game, match, or meet is held.

The lack of clear guidance will only harm female athletes. Male athletes possess inherent biological advantages over female athletes. These advantages, such as physical stature, bone density, lung capacity, muscle mass, and wingspan, are well-documented, and they persist even with the use of puberty-suppressing drugs. Allowing biological male athletes to compete in girls’ sports not only endangers female competitors, but also creates an unlevel playing field in terms of roster spots, awards, scholarships, and other opportunities. This past spring, a high school track athlete from western PA was excluded from states when a biological male took her spot. Without solid policies, situations like these will become more common.

It’s also crucial that we implement policies to protect the privacy and dignity of our female athletes in girls’ locker rooms. We firmly believe that it is both unnecessary and unjust to compromise the privacy of female athletes to accommodate male students who may be grappling with identity-related challenges. Practical and fair accommodations, such as providing private changing rooms for students who prefer them, can ensure the comfort and security of all student athletes.

Fortunately, Central Bucks School District has taken an essential step by initiating discussions to establish a clear policy aligning with Title IX protections, intending to maintain separate sports categories based on biological sex. It is our hope that this policy will pass board vote and become district policy. In a similar vein, Pennridge School District introduced a local policy this year that respects sex-based bathroom and locker room access. That policy passed 8 to 1, with the lone no vote coming from the only Democrat on the Pennridge board, Ron Wurz.

But these policies, while commendable, are only the start for protecting girls in Bucks County. It is our hope that all Bucks County districts will implement similar policies, to preserve the fairness and integrity of girls’ sports, as well as the safety and privacy of female athletes.

Board Directors and Candidates for School Board— this issue is too important to ignore. Will you answer the call to protect our girls?

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Former members of the ReOpen Bucks County group on Facebook have founded a new, women-led political action committee (PAC), Protect Bucks County PA.

The group’s treasurer is Chalfont resident Jamie Walker, who was at the forefront of fighting for county public records showing officials’ steps during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Walker said as ReOpen Bucks, members were very active in the 2021 election and kept some school boards, flipped the Centennial School Board to the Republicans, and county row offices that were up for election.

With Protect Bucks County PA, they are more organized and will again be focused on countywide elections and school board races this year, she said.

The PAC is focused on three main issues: Personal freedom, protecting girls’ sports and girls’ spaces, and government transparency, she said. It will thoroughly vet candidates before supporting them, Walker added.

Some Delaware Valley school districts, such as Great Valley, allow biological males to use girls’ restrooms if they believe they are girls.

Chair Tricia Doebler, also of Chalfont, said, “We feel this is the next hurdle for us to protect our spaces and sports. We want to guarantee government transparency and personal freedom. Those are the three pillars we’re working around.

“We wanted to be hyper-local with a way to be involved and support candidates seeking to do those things,” Doebler continued. “During COVID, our personal freedoms were taken from us,” said Walker. “We were locked in our homes. They kept kids out of school. They masked children illegally.”

Walker won a case before the state Supreme Court against then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro on masking school children.

“If we don’t get the right candidates, it will happen again,” said Walker. “And now, with girls’ sports, the PIAA is very unclear about its rules with males participating.”

“We have to elect candidates who will protect girls’ sports and girls’ bathrooms and all their spaces,” Walker added. “We’re going to interview them and make sure they align with our values.”

Doebler said the group has “learned a lot” about how important the people running the local government are.

“Bucks County was open and had kids back in school before many areas,” she said. “And that was because of who we voted into positions of power locally.”

They began the PAC a few weeks ago and reached their first goal: $2,023. Members plan to help candidates they support by volunteering, not just giving money, Walker said.

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Americans across the country watched aghast as collegiate swimmer Lia Thompson, a biological male who was a mediocre competitor against other men, qualified to compete in the NCAA Women’s Championships. To most people here in Pennsylvania’s Sixth District, allowing men to compete against women in women’s sport is absurd, and they’re right.

Mothers and fathers across this district spend countless years and dollars driving their daughters to practice, paying for uniforms and trips, providing moral support and watching their daughters compete in hopes of snagging athletic scholarships. These scholarships exist as a result of hard-won political battles a generation ago to establish equitable Title IX Act (1972) funding for girls’ sport.

But now all of that is put at risk as girls’ college and high school athletics are at risk of becoming a league dominated by men.

But our representative in Congress, Chrissy Houlahan, doesn’t just disagree with the common-sense notion that biological men shouldn’t compete in girls’ sports, she supports codifying into federal law the right of men to elect to compete in women’s sports via the so-called “Equality Act.”

And for Rep. Houlahan, support for the intrusion of biological men into women’s spaces doesn’t stop with athletic programs. Federal legislation that she supports would give these men access to women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, prisons, and even battered women’s shelters.

As the father of a young daughter, I find this as dangerous as it is absurd. And having spoken to other parents here in Berks and Chester counties, I know I’m not alone.

But Chrissy Houlahan doesn’t care what her constituency thinks. She’s more concerned with scoring points with the ‘woke’ left. While she’s campaigned as a moderate, she’s become one of the most liberal elected officials in the entire country.

When I am elected to replace her, I will not only oppose the Equality Act, but I will go on offense against this invasion of women’s sports and spaces. I will introduce legislation to restrict any federal funds from any state school system or college or university that allows biological men into girls’ sports. I will also fight to restrict funding from any government-grant funded program that does not recognize the inherent distinction between men and women.

This issue isn’t just about trophies. This is about preserving the wins for women’s rights secured over generations going back to the suffragist movement. This is about allowing women to feel safe and secure in their own spaces. This is about standing up to the backwards and destructive woke-ism that destroys everything it touches.

On this and many other issues, Chrissy Houlahan is out of touch with the values of our district, and that is something that we can correct in the November General Election. Unlike Chrissy Houlahan, I will be a champion for women’s sports and spaces, and I humbly ask for your vote.

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