Chelsea Mitchell and Kristen Waggoner condemn USA Today's unauthorized alteration of Mitchell's op-ed, which replaced "biological males" with "transgender athletes," citing a severe lack of journalistic integrity. They detail how Mitchell lost four state championships after racing against physically superior biological males, prompting a 2019 Department of Education complaint and subsequent lawsuit against the Biden administration. The discussion highlights national cases in Idaho and Arizona where women faced unfair competition and physical harm due to inclusive policies, while Waggoner criticizes the ACLU for abandoning free speech principles. Ultimately, the guests argue that biology is essential for fair sex-separated sports and call for grassroots support to protect female athletes from an increasingly politicized playing field. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm Dave Rubin and we're gonna be doing something a bit different today.
Let me give you a little backstory here.
On May 22nd of this year, USA Today put out an op-ed from Collegiate Track star Chelsea Mitchell about her experiences competing against transgender athletes.
However, on May 25th, just three days later, the publication changed the word male to transgender throughout her piece, without warning, and called her out for using, quote, hurtful language.
In an editor's note, the outlet explained that the op-ed was updated to, quote, reflect USA Today's standards and style guidelines.
We regret that hurtful language was used.
Today, I'm speaking with the author of that op-ed and her lawyer.
Please welcome one of the fastest girls in Connecticut, track star Chelsea Mitchell, and her lawyer, who is the general counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, Kristen Waggoner.
Kristen, I reached out to you originally when I saw this story on Twitter because it just so fits so many of the things that I've been talking about on this show.
Chelsea, I'll start with you since you wrote the original piece.
Well, I guess first, just tell me how you got into track and you enjoy running, right?
Like that's really what this is all about.
You want to compete against girls and running.
unidentified
Yeah, I was an athlete my entire life.
And when I got to high school, I started running track.
And I kind of quickly realized that I was really good at it.
And unfortunately, my experience in high school was, you know, not the best because I had to race against biological males my entire high school career.
I lost a lot of opportunities because of it.
I lost four state championships, two All-New England Awards, and countless other opportunities to play in advance and medal.
And was it immediate that they were, like, right out of the gate, they were faster and winning all the races?
unidentified
Right out the gate, they were still placing very high in the state.
I was, when I was a freshman, I placed 7th at the state open in the 100 meters, and one of the biologists came out and placed 3rd, knocking me out of the spot to advance the New England championship.
Right, so what caused you to write this piece, and then I'll get to sort of where the legal part of this is, and then we'll get Kristen involved.
unidentified
I really just wanted to bring attention to what has been happening in Connecticut because I personally think it's really unfair to have biological males race against biological females because we just cannot keep up with the physical advantage of a male body.
And so I decided to put out my own story out there so that people could understand what was happening and how unfair it was.
Well, initially we filed a complaint with the Department of Education.
That was during the Trump administration in June of 2019.
And as time continued to pass and we weren't seeing the Department of Ed take substantive action on it, we ended up filing a lawsuit in February of 2020.
And that was Chelsea's senior year.
There were some circumstances for her where she was ready to move forward with that and we were glad to assist because there were four state championship titles that she was losing and it was just coming to the end where we needed to get judicial relief and so that's why we filed the lawsuit.
Right, so Chelsea, what do most people think sort of behind the scenes?
I sense that there's sort of an activist class and a media class that loves pushing these stories, but the average person that's going to these track events and watching you lose to a biological male probably gets why you're upset about this.
unidentified
Yeah, I think a lot of people who have seen this happen in Connecticut understand how unfair it is, especially because Yeah, so Kristen, what do you want legally?
that were beating us females by significant margins in these races.
And it was happening at every single race that we raced against them, we were losing.
And it was a big difference and everyone can tell that.
Well, there are four girls that are in the case in Connecticut.
Two have graduated and two remain in the Connecticut schools.
And so for the two that have graduated, including Chelsea and also Selena Sol, those records need to be corrected.
In this case alone, it's important to realize there were two boys that identified as girls.
One of those boys competed as a girl three weeks before he decided to move over and compete as a girl.
And those two boys took 15 different races, championships away from girls during those three seasons.
So there was a huge impact in Connecticut.
So we want the records to be set straight.
And then for the girls that are continuing in this Connecticut system, they need to be assured that there are going to be biological girls competing against each other, and that it's going to be a fair playing field moving forward.
I mean, I'm sure there may be isolated cases where that's true.
But what we do know is that when boys transition into the girl sports, there are hundreds, literally hundreds of high school boys that can beat the most elite female runners.
And they have a 10 to 50% performance gap.
So when you're just looking at averages alone, a mediocre male athlete will almost always be able to beat an elite female athlete.
Right, so what would you prefer that those trans athletes do?
Should they have their own division altogether, or you would just prefer that, okay, you were born male, you should just be competing with the boys regardless of how you feel about yourself, something like that?
unidentified
I think the most important thing right now is to protect the female category and make sure that us males are having a fair competition.
And I think that should be the number one priority.
And we can't think of any other instance in the 30-year history we've been involved in public interest law where they have felt like they could change what someone else wrote without even advance notice.
Like, we didn't get a call that said, hey, just want you to know.
This just happened.
And it's just, it's shocking in terms of the lack of journalistic integrity.
There probably is, but I don't know that we're as interested in that as making sure that the public knows that this language isn't appropriate, that what USA Today has done isn't right, and winning this case for our girls.
I mean, girls should have equal opportunities, the same opportunities that their brothers have, and they need to be authentic and real.
And that can't happen when male-bodied athletes are competing in the girls category.
Chelsea, can you just talk a little bit about what it's like to be a young person going through the mob and the monster that so many people fear?
That's really why I reached out to Kristen originally when I saw this, because I just saw, oh, here's just a nice girl who wants to run and tell her story, that's it.
And then, of course, you read the stuff that they're saying about you and about you, Kristen, and all the rest of it, and it's just nothing to do with the truth.
unidentified
It's really frustrating, especially because this is just about sports.
You know, biology matters in sports, and I think that's really obvious to a lot of people.
So, you know, I'm not trying to be harmful in any way.
Defending Transgender Athletes00:04:57
unidentified
I just want to be able to run on a chair comfortably.
As you've probably seen, there have been 30-some different state proposals that were just proposed this last year because we are seeing it happen across the United States.
I've seen it on my own daughter's teams in conservative Arizona, softball as well as soccer.
We've had volleyball teams that have called us where literally a girl got a concussion from being hit with a guy playing, and of course they're playing on the lower nets, right?
And then we have the Idaho case, which where the ACLU immediately brought suit, challenging a law that protected women in that state.
And they're trying to get it struck down at the Ninth Circuit.
And we represent two track athletes at the collegiate level in that case as well.
I mean, it's just so stunning when you think about the fact that the ACLU would go after, you know, would defend those in Skokie so many years ago, and yet on free speech matters, they don't believe in free speech anymore.
And we used to be able to say that, you know, we would defend to the death you for your free speech rights, even if we disagreed with you.
And that used to be the ACLU's position, but they've abandoned it long ago in favor of ideology.
I will say, though, that there is a broader coalition that's supporting Chelsea and this issue.
There are, you know, feminists that are coming out and saying this is not right, and we're thankful for them.
We might not align with them on other issues, but man, where we do align is that biology matters and that we're setting women back by allowing men to call themselves women and compete against women in their own categories.
Chelsea, I can sense you're wired sorta cool, which I like here, but can you talk a little bit about what it's like to just be a young person in this bizarrely polarized political time and all of this stuff, transgender athletes and critical race theory, all of these things that I'm sure your friends are talking about, and it's gotta be just a rough time to be in high school and college right now.
unidentified
It's definitely hard, especially on this topic, because, you know, I really believe that, you know, biological prematurity is important.
And, you know, an issue that should be pretty clear and pretty obvious has been very politicized.
And it's definitely very frustrating to have it be that way when I don't think it should be.
Yeah, has that been the weird part for both of you guys that, you know, the side that keeps saying science matters is actually being quite anti-science right now?
That must be strange for you, Chelsea.
unidentified
Yeah, it's definitely frustrating to hear them kind of, you know, not acknowledge the science behind biology.
We've been in all of these states and eight states have passed bills so far.
So that's one thing, but I want to really encourage grassroots support in your own backyard.
I mean these things are happening in our school boards.
The same philosophy as you already linked it with CRT.
We need to be active when these kinds of policies are passed because they pass them under the dark of night and we need to be adept to those and have the courage to speak out in our own communities and also to be looking out for those like Chelsea who are caught in the crosshairs Give them words of encouragement because they feel isolated and they are attacked.
And so those words of encouragement are really helpful, too.