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Court likely will rule this week on Idaho, West Virginia laws that ban transgender athletes from women’s sports
Until the Supreme Court rules on whether male athletes who identify as transgender can compete in girls’ and women’s sports, Lienna Saltz is left wondering how her record as a decorated collegiate athlete will hold.
“There’s separation of sex and sports to begin with, and there’s a reason that Title IX was created over 50 years ago now… because men and women are not created equal in the sense of physiology,” she told The College Fix in a recent phone interview.
Saltz, a Southern Utah University alumna and decorated track athlete, was forced to compete against a transgender athlete in her senior year at the Outdoor Big Sky Conference Championship.
Now a voice for equality in women’s sports, Saltz believes that the Supreme Court’s decision, which is expected any day now, could signal significant shifts in the longstanding struggles for equality in women’s sports.
“If it were to rule in favor of us, in favor of female athletes… I would hope that we’re continuing to set the precedent that women and girls all across the country, all ages, all sports deserve an equal and fair playing field and also deserve to be protected,” Saltz told The Fix.
“Hoping that the Supreme Court rules in favor of women and girls everywhere, I think that it will set the precedent that there needs to be a change, that this isn’t going to continue, that women and girls have fought for fairness in women’s sports,” she said.
The two conflicting cases that the Supreme Court took up — Hecox v. Little and West Virginia v. BPJ — center around arguments over the constitutionality of state laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban male athletes who identify as female in women’s category sports.
The question at the center of the case is whether “laws that seek to protect women’s and girls’ sports by limiting participation to women and girls based on sex violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment,” according to SCOTUS Blog.
The cases represent the greater efforts of state-level legislative action to respond to what advocates say is a blatant Title IX infringement in women’s sports. But for Saltz, this movement is more than about protecting equal opportunity in women’s sports, it’s also about safeguarding the rights of women both on and off the field.
When discussing the potential consequences of a ruling against Idaho and West Virginia’s state laws, Saltz described the larger implications this decision could have on the next generation of young women in America.
“We’re just now starting to really see the impacts – how positive it is to be a Division I athlete or just be an athlete in college, be an athlete in high school, learn leadership, understand what it means to have hard work and discipline – how those things can affect you in the long term,” Saltz said.
“I think it’ll be very disappointing for women and girls, for myself, somebody that was able to break multiple records at my university… I couldn’t imagine one day seeing those records be taken down and given to somebody who has a biological advantage over me,” she said.
Since the end of her collegiate athletic career, Saltz has been an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum, where she continues to speak out against this issue.
As a senior, Saltz competed against the first female-identifying male athlete in a Division 1 cross country competition in 2020. She told the Independent Women’s Forum, previously, “In the middle of that race, after finishing her leg, Linnea heard the University of Montana coach from the sidelines telling the transgender athlete something she’d never heard in competition before: to slow down.”
Advocates of integration of transgender athletes into women’s category sports argue that hormone thresholds and individualized assessments can be effectively implemented to mitigate the physiological advantages of transgender athletes over biological female athletes.
“These are individuals that have already built their lung capacity, their heart, their muscles, their height, everything has already genetically formed in that of a man. And so just to bring down their hormone levels and to say that they’re now equal to that of a female athlete, it’s honestly kind of insulting,” Saltz told The Fix.
Saltz believes that equality in women’s sports does not just apply to competition but to protections off the field as well.
“I’m due with a baby girl any day, and it’s definitely something that I think about as well for her and her future,” Saltz said.
“My husband is an athlete; I’m an athlete. We would love our children to be involved in athletics… and I couldn’t imagine putting her in a space where she doesn’t feel safe, where she doesn’t feel protected, where she doesn’t feel like it’s fair,” she said.
No matter the outcome, Saltz encouraged women, and especially female athletes, to use their voices to be advocates for equality.
“We aren’t looking to create equality between men and women because we aren’t equal,” Saltz said. “We’re just looking for equal opportunities.”
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