Commentary from Higgins: Protecting Girls’ Opportunities in Sports is not Discrimination. It’s Justice.
Commentary from Republican Del. Geary Higgins.
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Commentary from Higgins: Protecting Girls’ Opportunities in Sports is not Discrimination. It’s Justice.
By Del. Geary Higgins, R-Loudoun
When our daughters take the field, they should know they’re competing on a level playing field. That shouldn’t be controversial. But today, it is. My wife and I have experience with this having raised 3 daughters in the public school system who were all athletes. We’ve been to the 5:30 am practices and to just about every pool or playing field in Virginia.
In schools across Virginia, biological males are being allowed to compete in girls’ sports. It’s happening right now—in track meets, swim lanes, and volleyball courts. And every time it happens, a girl loses a spot on the roster, a place on the podium, or a shot at a scholarship she worked years to earn.
This isn’t fairness. It’s erasure. And it’s time to speak up.
Let me say the quiet part out loud: boys and girls are different. That’s not discrimination. That’s biology.
We have separate categories in sports for a reason, and it’s not to exclude anyone. It’s to protect the integrity of competition and ensure that every athlete has a fair chance to succeed.
But today, common sense is under attack.
Democrats in Richmond have voted repeatedly against bills that would protect girls' sports. They claim it’s about inclusion — but the only people being excluded are the girls who have to compete against stronger, faster, taller opponents who went through male puberty.
This is not a theoretical debate. It’s not a culture war talking point. It’s a real issue with real consequences for real students.
Ask the high school volleyball player who suffered a concussion after a spike from a male athlete.
Ask the track runner who missed out on regionals because a spot went to a biologically male competitor.
Ask the parents of a young swimmer who has trained for years, only to be pushed down the rankings in an event she once dominated.
And then ask the politicians who allow it to keep happening why they think this is okay.
Republicans believe girls deserve better. We believe sports should be safe, fair, and rooted in reality. That’s why we’ve introduced legislation to ensure that students compete according to their biological sex in school athletics—because protecting girls’ opportunities is not discrimination. It’s justice.
This is not about banning anyone from participating. Every student has a right to play sports. But we draw lines in other areas—age brackets, weight classes, divisions—because fairness matters. So does safety.
And when we pretend those lines don’t matter, it’s not just athletic competition that suffers. It sends a message to every girl in Virginia that her accomplishments don’t count. That her hard work can be wiped away by political correctness. That speaking up for herself might make her a target.
We can be compassionate and still be honest. We can respect every student’s dignity while also respecting the rights of girls to compete against girls. These are not mutually exclusive ideas. They are the foundation of any serious approach to fairness and equality.
So let’s say it plainly:
This isn’t about hate — it’s about fairness.
This isn’t about exclusion — it’s about protection.
And if we don’t draw the line here, there won’t be a place left for our daughters to win.
I’m proud to stand with the female athletes of Virginia, on every field, court, and track. And I will keep fighting to make sure their effort, their excellence, and their futures are never sacrificed to appease an ideology that forgot what fairness really means.
Some of this is true, most of it is plain muddle-headed thinking. True, males and females are different. Indeed, within males and females there are different levels of skills and body builds. To make a blunt assumption, as Rep. Higgins has, that all males are by nature physically superior to women is simply incredibly wrong and, well, just plain blind. He almost seems to be implying that some male athletes have cut of their penises and have had vaginas surgically implanted along with taking hormones so that they can grow breasts -- all so they can beat girls in sports! Yikes! I can't think of a jock who gave up his sex life as a man in order to excel in girl sports and, perhaps, even receive a scholarship in a sport. Is that what Rep. Higgins is saying? I have a nephew who went from being male to female and, like many others in that boat, before the transfer was a bit on the effeminate side. Like homosexuality, this isn't anything he chose. And, like nearly all effeminate men, my nephew has never been interested in sports. So why the big stink!? Are there so few issues in this country, and within Virginia, that our legislators have time to spend on an issue as meaningless as this?
I could not agree more that protecting girls in their sports so that they compete fairly is a form of justice. In this case, however I fear you are creating a danger that really is not there. Girls teams are not being overwhelmed by a hoard of boys, pretending to be girls. There are an extremely rare and few number of transgender girls that. That is to say persons who were female, born with male genitalia. That’s a simple minded way of stating a very complex matter. So don’t pick on it. The point is there are very very few. They are not an invasion. I do not know anything about transgender youth and have some apprehension about. Permitting therapy at too early of an age. However, I do know a number of transgender adults. None of the persons who are now fully female are particularly interested in athletics. They are just ordinary women who want to be ordinary women. The same is true for the several males who were born with female genitalia. They have turned out to be ordinary people whose lives have been made a lot happier because who they are and who they appear to be are the same. History is full of stories about transgender persons going back many thousands of years. Only recently has medical science permitted these very few persons to. Resolve the conflict of being one thing, but looking like another. It’s a complicated, expensive, time consuming, and emotionally demanding process. Nobody does it just for fun or to play on the other team. Nobody goes through it to act out sexual perversions. I can say this as the father of three daughters, all involved in athletics, and the grandfather of three granddaughters, all involved in athletics I am grateful for all the laws and rules that make it possible for them to compete fairly against others of their age and weight. Perhaps they will someday encounter a transgender athlete competing against them. It does happen. But it’s unlikely. Yes, by all means keep things fair. It has only just. but please don’t pick on a tiny little minority. Making them out to be some sort of moral enemy. That is not fair or just either.
Steven Woolley