What Voter Passage of Women’s Sports Protections in 4 Very Different States Tells Us

Commentary

“We should be careful,” Mark Twain once said, “to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well. But she will also never sit down on a cold one.”

I’m wondering if some of the candidates who helped overthrow the political status quo in so many of the Nov. 3 elections aren’t learning a little more than what they’re supposed to learn from their success.

It would be easy, given the platforms many of the winners ran on, to conclude that Americans, coast to coast, are now wide open to radical left ideology—including men in women’s sports, irreversible transgender surgeries, and abortion on demand.

And those who rightly stand for truth and oppose such measures may be tempted to succumb to the belief that any efforts to push back against them are hopelessly in vain.

I believe both groups would be gleaning too much from the election’s shift in political power because there is a deeper lesson to draw from the outcomes: Americans are fed up with dangerous gender ideology and the damage it’s causing to our daughters and granddaughters—both on and off the playing field. Despite a concerted leftist push, these past few years have seen a steady surge of opposition to that intrusion; indeed, a 2025 New York Times poll showed that nearly 80 percent of Americans are against men competing in women’s athletics.

The midterm elections bore that out. Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Washington all passed measures protecting women’s sports. Despite very different political demographics across these states, millions of voters chose to cast their ballots in support of protections for female athletes. For the voters, the simple common sense of this issue transcended political parties and candidates.

When we reject that common sense, the harm is real, widespread, and devastating. It brings the kind of pain, embarrassment, and injustice our client Kallie Keeler endured when the young high-schooler was unknowingly forced to wrestle a male who sexually assaulted her during their match.

Girls deserve to compete on a safe and fair playing field. Far too many have lost crucial athletic opportunities, medals, and scholarship opportunities trying to outrun, outswim, and outplay men who are biologically stronger than they are. It takes only one male to completely upend the female sports division: A single male from West Virginia defeated more than 400 girls more than 1,400 times in track and field. Confronting such basic truths matters.

If this midterm election communicates any widespread message, it’s not a newfound love for political extremism. Rather, it’s a deep yearning for the truth. A man is not, and can never become, a woman. The innate differences between the two sexes matter on the sporting field, in locker rooms and restrooms, and even in the doctor’s office.

And our newly elected officials should take note: Your mandate is to lead and govern consistent with that truth. Rather than blocking efforts to uphold fairness, privacy, and safety for young women, you ought to champion it. Rather than promoting radical gender ideology in law, education, and medicine, you ought to codify biological truth and ensure that those who speak and live out that truth never face discrimination for doing so.

The election results should also embolden residents in the 20-plus states without protections for female athletes. To those who know and believe these “self-evident” truths: Reach out to your families, your neighbors, your coworkers, and your leaders, and explain your beliefs in thoughtful, urgent, and compelling ways. Encourage others to do the same. Those conversations may plant seeds to help end radical gender ideology in your state and your school district.

On the floor of a legislature … across a back fence … in pulpits, in op-eds, in on-camera interviews … in campus classrooms and civic debates and workplace conversations … we must boldly and winsomely speak the truth.

And, as the midterm results make abundantly clear, never underestimate the power of a vote.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.