DV Journal

(This column first appeared in Broad + Liberty)

As readers, listeners and friends know, I’ve been coaching softball for 26 seasons. My family, faith, and conservative politics are the only things that I’ve been involved in longer.

While coaching, I have purposefully kept a wall between my softball world and my political world. I even ignored a phone call from soon-to-be Speaker Kevin McCarthy while coaching at the Pennsylvania Little League Softball Championships.

I’m duty-bound to crack the wall.

Our local high school softball team has advanced to the state tournament — the “sweet 16.” I coached many of those players in Little League and beyond. I still attend their games.

Recently, I saw the videos and read the story about Minnesota’s state high school softball championship. The “winning team” won the championship by having their pitcher throw back to back shut-outs.

Their pitcher is a biological male.

I can be silent no more.

I do not live in Minnesota. I do not know any of the players. Yet I know that what happened was wrong. It must not be allowed to happen, especially not in competitive softball or any sport with prizes, titles and scholarships on the line.

Whatever one thinks about the morality or the politics of transgender issues, we should all agree that when it comes to competitive sports, allowing a biological male to pitch — from 43 feet away — to high school girls is wrong. It’s a safety issue.

And, yes, it’s a fairness issue.

Let me tell you about the girls I’ve coached. They put in thousands of hours of practices, drills, conditioning and lessons—and play hundreds of games. They play when it’s 101 degrees and the infield is like playing at the beach. They play after rain, when the batter’s box and pitcher’s mound are like swamps in Louisiana. They play in the early spring and late fall when the wind chill is in the 30s. I’ve been at games when it was snowing.

They play with bruises, blisters, and soreness. The pitchers throw until their arms almost fall off.

They play for their coaches and trainers. They play for their teammates and parents. They play for themselves.

They deserve better.

As a nation, we watched men playing college and high school volleyball spiking the balls into the faces of girl opponents. We watched track and field championships turn into dark comedy and tragedy as males win medals, sometimes beating female opponents by outlandish differentials.

We watched the Olympics allow a man to literally beat up female boxers — and they rewarded the male athlete with a gold medal.

I can be silent no more. This is wrong and it must be stopped.

Sporting events are becoming mockeries of competition. Someone is bound to get hurt. Someone might get killed.

Part of the reason I chose to coach softball was that 26 years ago, girls’ sports had fewer coaches, crappy equipment, and less support. Through a change in culture and Title IX, eventually that changed over time.

Until now.

Now, that hard work of advocates, parents, coaches, and female athletes is being yet again pushed aside and devalued. Adults with an upside-down sense of morality and “fairness” have not only tolerated this injustice, but fight to make it so. Women’s sports, they allege, must allow men identifying as women to participate.

These adult administrators, commissioners, and league officials are ruining careers and crushing dreams to advance an ideology — or out of fear of expressing common sense. Then, they often allow these men to use the locker rooms and shower next to our daughters.

Enough.

I don’t know the Minnesota high school softball pitcher who is a biological man that alleges he identifies as a woman. Perhaps his feelings are genuine. Perhaps he’s wrestling with identity issues. Perhaps he has other emotional issues. Perhaps he has self-esteem issues. Perhaps he’s “scamming the system” to win prizes.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that no matter what his story is, no matter what his reality is, he should not have been allowed to pitch in the high school state softball championship.

Maybe he needs counseling. Maybe he needs tough love. Maybe he needs support — be it for a battle he’s fighting or because he’s genuinely confused. Maybe he needs love.

We can empathize with the student and with his parents. We can respect his feelings as genuine. We can send him our prayers. Perhaps we should do all those things.

What we should not do is give him a gold medal and his team a championship trophy.

His feelings do not outweigh biology, common sense, fairness, and safety.

What happened in Minnesota was my tipping point — perhaps because it was softball. Even more than the cruelty of boxing and the embarrassment of track and field, this compelled me to break down my wall.

This madness in girls sports must stop.

The Great Valley School District was slapped with a federal civil rights complaint over its policies that permit biological males to play in girls’ sports and use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms.

Former Great Valley School Board President Bruce Chambers filed the complaint with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Chambers says he warned district officials and the school board they were no longer in compliance with federal law under Title IX. In his complaint, he cited an executive order by President Donald Trump protecting girls’ and women’s sports.

“I sent three emails to the Great Valley School Board, citing these issues and asked when they would change their policy,” Chambers said. “They responded once, and stated that ‘At this time, our legal counsel has advised that our current policies are consistent with established legal precedent. We will continue to monitor any developments related to this issue to ensure that we remain compliant with the law.’”

When the district declined to act, Chambers did.

“Since it is apparent that the School Board is not changing their policies to be compliant, I am, therefore, requesting a full investigation of the Great Valley School District’s Policy 103.3 and its implementation in the School District,” Chambers said.

“The Great Valley School District violates Title IX by enforcing Policy 103.3 that will ‘ensure the safety, comfort, and healthy development of transgender and gender expansive students,’” according to the complaint.

Policy 103.3 reads in part:

“Students will be allowed to use the restroom that corresponds to the gender identity they consistently assert at school. The District will provide a transgender or gender expansive student with access to the locker room that corresponds to the gender identity they consistently assert at school. Transgender and gender expansive students shall be permitted to participate in athletic programs and classes in a manner consistent with their asserted gender identity.

“Transgender and gender expansive students will be allowed to participate in accordance with the gender identity they consistently assert at school.”

According to the complaint, “Policy 103.3 ‘provides these students with the ability to feel safe and comfortable using sex-segregated intimate restroom and locker room facilities as well as participating in physical education, sports and other school activities consistent with their ‘gender identity.’

“However, this policy is in violation of Title IX as it denies students whose ‘gender identity’ is the same as their sex the ability to feel safe and comfortable in the use of the sex-segregated common restrooms, locker rooms, and in their participation in sports, physical education classes, and other school activities.”

“The policy attempts to provide alternatives for students to use private restrooms or locker rooms, but this only provides greater rights to students whose gender identity does not match their biological sex than for those whose identity is the same as their sex,” the complaint said.

District spokeswoman Sharee McGibboney did not respond to a request for comment.

Chambers said the district’s policy amounts to “systemic discrimination.”

Furthermore, the district does not disclose a student’s preferred gender to their parents because it might violate their right to privacy.

“Transgender and gender expansive students have the right to discuss and express their gender identity and expression openly and to decide when, with whom, and how much to share. When contacting the parent/guardian of a transgender or gender expansive student, school personnel should use the student’s legal name and the pronoun corresponding to the student’s gender assigned at birth unless the student has specified otherwise,” the district’s policy states.

DVJournal has previously reported on Great Valley’s policy of hiding students’ behavior regarding sex and gender from their parents.

Equally important, why are Pennsylvania House Democrats so politically foolish that they’re thumbing their nose at an 80-20 issue? A January New York Times/Ipsos poll revealed 79 percent of Americans believe men shouldn’t compete in girls’ sports.

Of those surveyed, more than 60 percent of registered Democrats tallied, are against allowing biological men to compete with girls. The number is probably higher, I theorize, if you take away the intimidation contrived by the trans lobby, aimed at anyone who dares defend girls or cite biological reality.

The Background: Senate Bill 9, the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” sponsored by Sen. Judy Ward (R-Blair), passed the Pennsylvania Senate in bipartisan fashion early last week, carrying five Democrat votes and unanimous Republican support. The bill’s concept of fairness for girls’ and women’s sports isn’t new to the Pennsylvania legislature, but has suffered the same fate at the hands of Democrats. The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, introduced and passed in 2021 by Rep. Barb Gleim (R-Cumberland), was subsequently vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

SB 9, the Save Women’s Sports Act, has been sitting in the House Education Committee for over a week collecting dust. It’s not altogether uncommon for a bit of time to pass, even for a politically popular bipartisan measure, to be considered. Still, when the majority chairman of the committee pledges to a group of girls that he’ll block the bill from ever being considered, as the Daily Caller reported, it’s something different. Why the hostility? And, as a Democratic politician, why in the world would you die on this hill?

As a former two-sport Division 1 athlete, I have a better perspective on this issue than most. I clearly see in my years in sports the immense disparities in size, strength, and speed between girls and men. To ignore this reality is hazardous and unfair.

As a father to a little girl, the only word I can come up with is “unjust.” How unjust it is to potentially subject my seven-year-old in the future to a game that’s both dangerous to her, but also one that violates her privacy and steals opportunity from her.

As a politician, I can’t help but identify a trend when it comes to matters of basic civil rights. It is Democrats now blocking equality in women’s sports, yes. Still, it was also Democrats in greater proportion, in 1972, voting against equal participation for girls in sports with the Title IX amendment. If we venture back further to 1919 and consider the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, we see the same trend: Democrats voting against women in greater proportion.

The burning question, then, is what do Democrats have against girls and women? More specifically, what reason, what stakeholder, what principle would they cite to justify “blocking” a vote on protecting girl athletes? I’m asking the same questions with my “athlete” hat on as I am with my “dad” and “public servant” hats.

Make it make sense.

Lily Williams worked hard to obtain spots on the Hempfield High School girls’ track and field and cross-country teams.

But everything changed when a boy joined her girls’ team and showed up in their Lancaster locker room.

“Our team was a safe place, mentally and emotionally,” said Williams, who spoke at a press conference Monday for the Save Women’s Sports Act.

Then came a biological male identifying as female, a male who was “bigger, faster, and stronger” than the girls on the team.

The girls were confused, upset, and angry. Some started using outside Porta Potties to change in instead of the locker room. Williams, the team captain, approached the coach to tell him about her teammates’ concerns. The coach said nothing could be done, and he could not even talk to her about it.

“The fact was he was a boy and despite all the lies he was told, and the lies he told himself, he did not belong on the girls’ team.”

State Sens. Judy Ward (R-Blair) and Tracy Pennycuick (R-Montgomery) agree. They sponsored the Protect Girls and Women in Sports Act, which passed the Senate last week in a 32-18 vote.

Ward called the legislation “simply common sense.”

“As an athlete in my youth, and the mother of girls who competed in sports, I know the valuable lessons learned from competing in women’s athletics, such as leadership, grit, graciousness in winning and humility in losing,” Pennycuick added. “Let’s keep a level playing field in sports.”

The measure would ensure athletic teams designated for women are reserved for biological females in Pennsylvania’s K–12 and collegiate sports.

“According to the American College of Sports Medicine, males on average have larger hearts and lungs, greater stroke volume, and higher hemoglobin concentration, more muscle mass, less percentage body fat, and use energy more efficiently than females. All these advantages mean that for athletic events relying on endurance, strength, speed and power, males usually outperform females by 10 to 30 percent, depending on the sport,” Ward said.

“Since 2020 in Pennsylvania, 37 female athletes have lost first place and another 13 lost second or third place to men who were competing in their sports,” said Ward. Across the country, it has happened more than 100 times, and it’s caused girls and women to lose scholarships and trophies.

Emily Krebs, with Pennsylvania Family Council, supports the bill. Krebs said swimming on a team had a lasting impact on her, giving her the confidence to tackle challenges.

“I’m the mother of a young girl, and I want her to have a fair playing field,” said Krebs. “But unless something changes, unless we enact Senate Bill 9, she won’t have that.”

Krebs remembered seeing Lia Thomas, a male swimmer, win the women’s 500 freestyle in the Ivy League championship swimming for the University of Pennsylvania. He won that race “by over 7 seconds,” she said. “For the women, they were left racing for second in their own category.”

“Males continue to compete in Pennsylvania today in women’s sports,” she said. “Earlier this year, a male athlete competed in the indoor girls’ track and field competition. Two years ago, a male athlete made it to the PIAA championships in both the shot put and the discus in the women’s category. In order to win at the level, he had to displace girls in regional competitions and other levels. How many girls lost out on opportunities?”

Multiple polls show a strong majority of voters support keeping biological males out of girls’ sports and spaces. Elected Democrats, however, have largely ignored the polls and continue opposing legislation that connects gender to biology.

For Pennycuick, denying women their own opportunities violates federal law, which is why, she says, Pennsylvania lawmakers should step up on their behalf.

“As a cosponsor of the bill, I believe this is solely about fairness and opportunity and upholding the intent of Title IX. When a biological male replaces a female athlete, that individual is denied the right to equal participation as guaranteed under Title IX.”

The bill now goes to the House, where Democrats have a slim, one-vote majority.

Rep. Barbara Gleim (R-Cumberland) said she has a similar bill pending in the House Education Committee. The Senate bill is also in that committee. But because they are in the minority, they have to wait for the majority to bring the bill forward.

“I’m hopeful the majority chair will bring up the bill because it’s a fairly popular bill. It polls at 80-20. Eighty percent of the people do not believe that boys should be playing sports against girls,” said Gleim.

Ward said, “I call on the House to take up this vital legislation right away. Does it have to be your daughter for it to matter?”

Beth Ann Rosica, a West Chester mother of two teenage sons, is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania, claiming an agency overstepped when it unilaterally changed how a person’s sex is defined.

With little notice, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) changed its guidance regarding what sex means, declaring that rather than the biological definition, “under the PHRA may refer to sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, transgender identity, gender transition, gender identity, and/or gender expression depending on the individual facts of the case.”

Rosica told DV Journal she discovered the change when looking into the Moms for Liberty case where a federal judge ruled in favor of the mother’s group to block former President Joe Biden’s Title IX changes and to keep boys out of girls’ restrooms and off girls’ teams.

She found out many Pennsylvania school districts were following the PHRC guidance.

“They still had policies that required them to follow PHRC regulations,” said Rosica. When she began digging into the PHRC regulations, she found that the agency had enacted them in 2023 under Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and “nobody in the state legislature was involved. And they basically expanded the definition of sex to include gender identity.”

And even though President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning males from playing on women’s sports teams, Pennsylvania school districts were continuing to allow it. They also allowed men and boys to use women’s locker rooms and restrooms.

Rosica joined other concerned parents—Aaron Bernstine, Jason Saylor, Barbara Gleim, and Alexandra Pasternak—and filed a petition against the governor and the PHRC, alleging the new guidance is a violation of the state constitution and the non-delegation doctrine.  They’ve teamed up with the Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm, along with like-minded school districts South Side Area and Knoch.

Thomas King III of Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter and Graham is a special counsel to the Thomas More Society in this case. He explained that while Trump’s order covers these schools, “we (also) have an underlying state regulation that is inconsistent with his order.”

“And that is being thrown in the face of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), for example, that is being threatened with a lawsuit by the ACLU and others.” The PIAA, which governs school sports teams in Pennsylvania, had said it would follow Trump’s executive order.

“The particular state regulation was improperly adopted, should never have existed,” King told DV Journal. “When the Democrats in the legislature tried to amend Pennsylvania statutes — and over the past several years, they’ve tried on a number of occasions — every single time it failed. So, what’s happened here is they’ve circumvented the legislature, and they’ve tried to do it through administrative regulations from an unelected body appointed by the governor.”

And that is unconstitutional, said King, since “it’s the legislature that’s supposed to make the laws, not a group of unelected bureaucrats.”

Shapiro, answering a reporter’s question about this complaint at a press conference on Tuesday, said he hadn’t seen the suit, but mentioned that William Penn, “who founded this commonwealth as a place that would be warm and welcoming to all people. And I think it is my responsibility as someone who’s been passed down the torch of leadership from William Penn to make sure Pennsylvania remains a place that is warm and welcoming for all, including people in the LGBTQ+ community.  I understand there are those who want to score a cheap political point by bullying a trans kid, by making it harder for people to make it harder to marry who they want. That’s just not who I am, and I’m sure that’s not who the vast majority of Pennsylvanians are.”

There is no connection between banning biological males from women’s sports, and same-sex marriage.

“I’ve worked hard for women to have equal rights,” Rosica said.

“And when we’re allowing boys to compete against girls in sports or invade their private spaces, I just think that is wrong, and I think that we have a moral responsibility to point this out and get these regulations overturned,” she said. “I believe they’re unconstitutional. I don’t think they had the authority to change them. They did it very quietly. Nobody was talking about this in 2023 when the regulations (were adopted).”

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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