Standing Up for Women in Sports: Ensuring Opportunity, Fairness and Safety

Welcome everybody. We're here to discuss today how we can empower women and protect girls in sports and the impact of men competing in women's sports. Issues that we're never thought about when Congress enacted title nine. The Democrats held a hearing on transgender issues in twenty twenty three, including whether biological men should play in women's sports. Well, they were the majority of the committee. During that hearing, Democratic witnesses could not answer this simple question. Is there a difference between men and women? Further, their witness, when asked if in sports a biological male has an advantage over biological female, they answered, I don't think so. Today, the Democrats are choosing to let their two witnesses Seats go empty. That says a lot. Regarding whether it is fair for men to compete against women in sports, they were wrong on that issue in twenty twenty three, and they're still wrong. Women's sports is an important issue. For decades, I've personally supported w- women's sports. I've attended hundreds of women's athletic events. at my alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, like women's volleyball, last Friday night when we beat Wichita State. I attended the Friday and Saturday highlights of the Iowa State girls basketball tournament for thirty-nine years until twenty eighteen. I've cheered on girls and women's and my family. who compete in sports. We in Iowa are very proud of our own Caitlin Clark. I'd like to meet her sometime. I recently spoke on the center floor questioning WNBA's treatment of her and continue to monitor that situation. Girls and women's are playing sports in record numbers. Today, more than three in six million girls play high school sports. More than a quarter of a million women competed in college athletes in a twenty-four, twenty-five season. Iowa has had high school women's basketball. Since nineteen twenty eight, and until nineteen ninety three, they used that silly formation of women on women, six on six. Three in one half of the court and three at the other half of the court. That went out in nineteen ninety three, and we're better off for it, but at the time I thought it was a crucial mistake. Before, by the way, Texas and I think Texas and Iowa were the only ones that played women's basketball or girls basketball that way. Now before title nine, only one in twenty seven girls competed in sports. Now it's two in five. And this number doesn't even include participation in club sports, recreational leagues, and other community sports teams. This raises important questions. that society must contend with. Why is it important to preserve women's sports for only biological women? What is at stake? Studies and testimonials prove that girls' participation in sports has many benefits that should not be taken from those girls. High school girls involved in sports get higher grades. They graduate at a higher rate than girls who don't play sports. Sports is part of the solution to many of the mental health challenges that our kids face. We know from data that girls who play sports have more confidence and less depression. They have more positive body image. and their overall psychological well-being is better. The benefits to women of playing sports are very long-term. A twenty twenty-three survey found that sixty-nine percent of women who earn more than one hundred thousand dollars per year and are in leadership roles previously played competitive sports. Additionally, eighty-five percent of the women who played sports say the skills that they developed were very vital to success in their professional careers. I don't uh Just a minute, I'm sorry. Another study from twenty eighteen found that ninety-four percent of the women in C-suite positions played sports, more than half of which competed at the collegiate level. Eighty percent of the fortune five hundred female executives surveyed said that they played sports in their earlier years. Not to mention, playing sports has led to a record number of women holding top jobs within the sports industry, such as athletic directors and coaches. Being a former player, as well as familiarity and interest in sports is often a prerequisite to getting one of these high profiled, high paying jobs. This is the data. I don't understand why anyone would support seismic changes that reduces the number of biological females who have the opportunity to compete in sports. Now, many sports, leagues and clubs, have required women to seat their places on the podium and trade their gold medals for participating trophies. I remember the picture of the lady that tied somebody a biological male in some swimming meet. It was a tie. She was obviously the winner if it hadn't been for the advantages of male strength. And when they were standing on the podium, they insisted that the male be able to hold the trophy. That's outrageous. But that's a remembrance I have of just some of this discrimination. Biological women should not be asked to accommodate men who, for reasons of identity or otherwise, choose to compete in women's category instead of men's or co-ed category. Women were asked to get the vote, to participate in professions, to serve on juries, get get credit cards in their own names, and so much more. Women should not again be asked to cede their opportunities just to make men comfortable. Now, biological men want to play in women's leagues. The timing is suspect. This is all happening just as watching women's sports is becoming a national pastime. rivaling that of men's. This is also happening right as women athletes are making gains. Just as professional women's athletes are beginning to be paid a living wage. Just think what Caitlin Clark has brought to women's basketball. When she started out they were getting less than a hundred thousand dollars a year. Now I understand their salaries. are near four hundred thousand dollars a year, probably still not enough. Now is when men want to compete on women's sports teams. This isn't a coincidence. By allowing biological men in, it rips away opportunities, steals accolades, denies scholarships, and takes professional careers away from women and girls. It is just not fair. Let's be clear. Allowing biological men to play in women's sports breaks the promise of title nine. It takes a hard-won opportunity away from women. It goes backward, ripping the promise of American dream from women to once again give it to men. This hearing isn't about gender identity. It is about whether it is fair to women, for biological men, to compete against them in women's sports, or to take the podium from them, or to take the job from them, or to take the career from them, or to make endorsements and opportunities to be sports professionals. It may be tempting to talk about other issues surrounding transgender men and women today, but let's be clear. This isn't the purpose of this hearing. It would be a disservice to female athletes to delight or merely gloss over this topic to talk about men. When the other party chaired this committee, one of the first hearings they held in twenty twenty three tried to justify coddling men by letting them unfairly compete against biological women. I'm glad that we can revisit the issue of men playing in women's sports from the correct perspective. The public agrees with us, not with the other party. Seventy-three percent of the Americans are uncomfortable with transgender athletes competing on sports teams that do not match their sex at birth. sixty sixty-six percent of the adults favor a law or policy that will require tan- trans athletes to compete on teams that match their section uh sex at birth. I'm pleased some of the folks who testified and attended that hearing are joining us here again. There are also other brave women athletes in the audience. And if you'd like to stand and be recognized, I'd be glad to have you do that. Thank you very Thank you very much. Thank you all again for joining us and standing up for women everywhere. Now, Senator Durbin.

Mr. Chairman, if you ask the American people what are the priority issues you hope congress will address as soon as possible the issue of this hearing would not be in the top ten maybe not the top twenty people are concerned about the cost of living they're concerned about the ability to pay for the college education of their kids they're concerned about their utility bills they're concerned about their grocery bills they wanna know what we're doing about it the president has dismissed these concerns and says he does wanna talk about affordability he hates that democratic word well it's more than a democratic word it's a word it really typifies what the american families are thinking about and they're not thinking about the topic of this hearing today if you ask people where we should be focusing if we wanna help children and make sure they're protected i think they'd start off by saying how are we gonna get these damn cell phones out of their hands how are we gonna reach the point where these conversation at the kitchen table with their family. How are they gonna pay any attention to what's going on in school if they're hypnotized by these cell phones? We took this issue on because young people and their families are being exploited today. The social media firms stonewalled and tried to keep us from doing anything. We have passed several major bills on a bipartisan basis in this committee to protect children. from the harms of the social media platform. But for some reason, the bills never move on the floor. The control of floor traffic is in the hands of the Republican leader. I have spoken to him personally, I have spoken to the chairman. This is a really high priority, and you'll find it on the top ten list, of how to keep our kids from being hypnotized and, and exploited by these social media giants. We had a hearing when I was chairman several years ago, And the hearing invited the CEOs of the major companies. We had the CEOs from Meta, Alphabet, TikTok, and Snap. And I hope people remember that hearing. It was a good one. Strong questions on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, at moments that are still remembered by most of us who were there on that day. Why aren't those CEOs back again? Have we solved that problem? Certainly not. It is still a threat to our families and our children. Instead, we're talking about this issue. The committee should take a look at many uh issues like ar- artificial intelligence. But a new one came up this week that I think, although it's just this week that we've uh seen it, it's worthy of our concern. This is a letter which Senator Grassley and I received from a Republican senator, a colleague of ours, John Curtis, Republican of Utah. Let me read the first paragraph. Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Durbin, Trust in our government institutions continues to fail, continues to fall to near-historic lows. According to the Partnership for Public Service, only twenty-seven percent of Americans have trust in their federal government, while seventy-two percent say it is corrupt. There are many reasons for uh for this, But an important one is the perception that those with close proximity to political power are provided with opportunities, access, and treatment unavailable to ordinary Americans. Senator Curtis goes on to say that concern should not depend on which party controls the White House. What Republican Senator Curtis has proposed is that we have a hearing on the lavish wedding gifts given to Donald Trump Junior in his recent marriage on some island somewhere. The donor of those gifts was a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Vladimir Putin. Think about that for a second. The son of the president of the United States has a wedding reception, paid for in part at least, by a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. Is that worthy of a hearing? Do you think the American people believe corruption bel- belongs on that top ten chart? I think they do. And I'll have to say this, I think Senator Curtis showed real courage in asking us to do this. Now the argument that we don't have time, we're too busy, belies the fact that as soon as we finish this session, which could be as soon as this week, we'll be gone for six weeks. Be back in our states for six weeks. Certainly in that period of time there's time for a a deposition or a hearing on this issue of corruption at the highest levels of our government. And let me make this bipartisan. Senator Curtis uh uh also wants to make sure Hunter Biden is at that hearing. I wanna read to you Hunter Biden's response. "I say bring it on," Hunter Biden said after reading the Curtis letter. "I've already given more than seven hours of sworn testimony, more than three dozen witnesses testified across two chambers. I had no foreign business dealings while my father was president, none." I painted paintings and I still do. I'll sit next to Don Jr. and testify any time, any place. Eric and Jared can join us too. No need for a subpoena. Let's all do it tomorrow. So we set the stage for a hearing on corruption at the highest levels of our government. That is certainly in the top ten. Let me also say that we've had hearings, several hearings, on issues related to the jurisdiction of this committee when it comes to college athletics. In a prior hearing, the president of the NCAA, Charles Baker, former Republican governor of Massachusetts, told me when I asked him under oath that there were more than five hundred thousand NCAA athletes in this country, over five hundred thousand, according to Mister Baker. Of that number, he said fewer than ten, fewer than ten were trans. We can all agree that we want to be fair and safe in women's athletics. But this vendetta against a small number of people in the trans community affects everyone, including cisgender girls, who can be subject to inappropriate gender verification checks. If Republicans actually want to stand up for women in sports, and I do, they should listen to more than four hundred athletes who sent an open letter to the NCAA Board of Governors. Let me read from it. "Although trans-exclusionary efforts claim to protect women's sports, in reality they fail to address any of the real documented threats to women in sports. Namely, these women athletes wrote, " unequal pay, failure to uphold title nine, rampant sexual abuse, and harassment of women and girl athletes, and lack of equal resources for men's and women's teams." I hope my Republican colleagues are willing to discuss the to comparable facilities and resources for women's sports and the fact that women's sports are far behind men behind men in terms of compensation and revenue distribution. I hope they will take note that about twenty-one percent, twenty-one percent of female athletes globally report experiencing sexual abuse as a child in sports. Twenty-one percent, but only seven percent report this abuse. meaning there are serious gaps in safeguarding women and girls and ensuring accountability for abusers. If we're going to have a constructive conversation about women's sports, then we must demand honesty and compassion. Anything less is a disservice, including categorically treating every trans athlete, no matter their age or level of competition, as a threat to women's sports. Research from the Trevor Project found that, quote, "LGBTQ plus young people are too often placed at higher risk for suicide, not because of who they are, but as a result of mistreatment and stigmatization. This committee should not persist participate in that marginalization of any children in this country. For these reasons, I refuse to treat this hearing like a responsible exercise of this committee. I will not ask questions. The minority did not call any witnesses. I hope that one day we can return to the important work of conducting oversight. let's deal with corruption at the highest levels of our government let's deal with the social media platforms who are exploiting children male and female across the united states that's in our legal jurisdiction that should be our priority

if the audience will be patient i'd have two responses to what were just said the uh the ranking member knows that on these child safety bills that uh we have an agreement that they're going to be in the defense authorization bill um and uh and uh let that get that done that way and then the other one is i think i should respond to what he said about the curtis letter because i get the impression that you get a letter on friday and you're supposed to schedule a hearing the next week on the request of the letter to have a hearing and everybody who knows that anybody that's done investigative work it takes a lot of background work if you're gonna have a productive uh hearing uh and just as background so you know that i'm not afraid to call the president's son and even investigate hunter biden in twenty seventeen when i was chairman and senator feinstein was the ranking member We jointly investigated matters relating to the russian hoax as part of that bipartisan investigation. We interviewed Donald Trump. Junior and other republicans. We made our work public. In twenty nineteen, senator Johnson and I began our biden family investigation, which very much included hunter the son. It continues to this very day, and eh indeed just last week. we made public two fbi documents those documents summarize statements from fbi sources and the alleged biden family criminality uh ranking member durbin supports another investigation into donald trump junior yet he and my democrat colleagues in the faces of years of overwhelming evidence to include authentic bank records have ignored every allegation against the biden family in fact democrats have attacked and sought to undermine both my and the house investigation uh by the democrats definition his side has been complicit in covering up the biden family in deeds my democratic colleagues only want to investigate trump and his family my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can't maintain credibility when they pick and choose for political purposes who to investigate i've done the bipartisan investigative work the track record i just described dating to twenty seventeen speaks to itself now would you please rise so i can swear as we do traditionally within this uh committee uh do you swear