As female athletes and lawmakers across the country fight to keep biological males out of women's sports competitions and locker rooms, a Democrat running for the House of Representatives says she and women athletes are not worried about the issue.
Sue Altman, who is running for New Jersey's Seventh Congressional District, told the New York Post that she and others in women's locker rooms are not worried about the presence of transgender athletes in women's sports.
"As someone who’s been working to advocate for women’s rights and women’s sports, I promise you that in the locker rooms of women’s sports teams, we’re not super worried about this," Altman said. "We’ve been worried about getting equal access to gym time, good referees, good trainers so you don’t get injured, fair shake at scholarships, equal pay at the higher levels."
Altman advocated for allowing transgender athletes in girls' sports at the youth level, but she suggested she would be in favor of leaving individual committees the decision to allow those athletes to compete.
"I will let individual sport[s] committees decide the highest, highest-level things, but at the very heart of it, we have to respect people of all genders and give young children, especially young people and adolescents struggling with their gender identity, the chance to compete," she told the Post.
"I grew up with people who are now trans, who have transitioned from boy to girl or girl to boy, and those people struggled in adolescence."
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Altman is a former women's college basketball player who played at Columbia University in the early 2000s. She ended her career there as the program's eighth-leading scorer in history with 964 points. She did this despite playing for Holy Cross her freshman year, transferring to Columbia and sitting out her sophomore year due to NCAA guidelines.
Altman also played professionally in Europe for Killester in the Irish Women's Super League in Dublin and for Medical Instinct Veilchen in Goettingen, Germany.
Almtan has said she grew up in a family of Republicans but that her time at Columbia made her more liberal. In an interview with Columbia's student newspaper in March, she cited the Bush administration's response to 9/11 as a reason for her switching allegiances during her time in college.
Now she is running against Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., who has more than 20 years of experience in the House of Representatives.
Altman is also running in an election year that has seen multiple lawsuits filed by women athletes and at least 24 lawsuits by state attorneys general in response to transgender athletes in women's sports and Title IX changes by the Biden-Harris administration, which some argue enable biological males into women's locker rooms and on their field of play.
In April, the administration issued a sweeping rule to clarify that Title IX’s ban on "sex" discrimination in schools covers discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation and "pregnancy or related conditions."
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The rule took effect Aug. 1, and for the first time, the law stated that discrimination based on sex includes conduct related to a person’s gender identity. The Biden administration insisted the regulation does not address athletic eligibility. However, multiple experts presented evidence to Fox News Digital in June that the proposal would ultimately put more biological males in women's sports.
On Aug. 16, the Supreme Court voted, 5-4, to reject a Biden administration emergency request to enforce portions of that new rule, which includes protection from discrimination for transgender students under Title IX, after more than two dozen Republican attorneys general filed lawsuits against the administration to block its enforcement.
Meanwhile, Brooke Slusser, a member of San Jose State's women's volleyball team, joined 18 other athletes in suing the NCAA over its gender identity policies. The lawsuit alleged that Slusser, who transferred to San Jose State, was concerned for her safety after realizing one of her new teammates, Blaire Fleming, was transgender. Three of San Jose State's opponents have already forfeited games against the team since news of the lawsuit spread.
Former NCAA swimmer and OutKick contributor Riley Gaines has testified in Georgia about her experience competing against and sharing a locker room with transgender athlete Lia Thomas, a biological male, alongside four other NCAA All-American women athletes. Gaines is joined by Reka Gyorgy, Kylee Alons, Grace Countie and Kaitlynn Wheeler, all members of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in March alleging the association knowingly violated Title IX in allowing Thomas to compete.
The committee's inquiry will focus on the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, where Thomas competed for the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team. Gaines competed against and eventually tied Thomas, who identifies as a woman, in the 200-yard championships in 2022.
Far away from Altman's constituents in the Northeast, one Republican governor has already passed an executive order to ensure schools prevent biological males from competing in women's sports.
On Aug. 28, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed an executive order to enforce the Defending Women's Sports Act, which issued new protocols for the state's public schools to promote the exclusion of transgender athletes in women's sports. In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Aug. 30, Little did not rule out administering gender eligibility tests for all girls' and women's sports teams but added that "I’d have to see really good evidence that that’s necessary."
But Altman says she wants to reduce barriers for transgender athletes to compete as women for the sake of their mental health.
"If we decide as a society that making rules about who is and who isn’t female is more important than giving young children a chance to be on teams and compete and to be part of something bigger than themselves, especially young people who are more susceptible to suicide and bullying, then I think we’ve lost our way a little bit," Altman said.
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