As a lifelong athlete in a post-Title-IX world, participating in high school basketball, tennis, track and field and on the USA Handball team, I have experienced firsthand the continued inequalities girls face in sports.
The reality is that decades after Title IX was enacted to help level the playing field, girls are still cheated out of true fairness in sports every single day. Spending our time focused on vulnerable transgender youth is a distraction from the real problem at hand.
As my Republican colleagues in the Georgia Senate push Senate Bill 1 through the General Assembly, we must call out the potential harm this bill poses to our trans girls and name out loud the problem of true equity that women continue to face in almost every arena.
We must turn our focus to the real issue at hand — true fairness and safety in girls’ sports — instead of resorting to the bully tactics that the Republican “Fair and Safe Athletic Opportunities Act” has become.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
I have introduced SB 41, the “Equal Opportunities for Girls in Sports Act,” which lives up to its name by addressing the ongoing, unequal treatment girls experience in sports across Georgia. This bill opens up a real conversation about true “fairness” and “safety” in girls’ sports that will level the playing field and acknowledge the barriers faced by female athletes.
Barriers like being made to practice late at night or early in the morning when it’s still dark outside to accommodate the boys team’s practice preferences. Inequities like some girls soccer coaches making a third of the pay of the football coach. A real conversation about how some girls’ sports teams are assigned teacher supervisors with no coaching experience because the pay inequity is so steep that a qualified coach won’t take the job.
The list goes on.
Attention given to football teams far and above outweighs that given to any girls teams at their schools. Stretched-thin medical professionals and physical trainers who are hired to care for all school athletes are commandeered by the football and boys basketball teams. Sports media headlines highlight the accomplishments of the boys basketball team that wins the state championship much more than the girls basketball team that wins it all.
While professional female athletes are finally receiving greater recognition and heralded as role models for young women, troubling trends continue for our youth.
By age 14, girls are dropping out of sports at two times the rate of boys, for reasons including bullying, social isolation and discrimination based on their real or perceived sexual orientation. Women in their 20s are twice as likely to report safety concerns from their youth sports experiences as are those in their 40s, citing concerns about injury, safety and poor coaching.
Creating more equal opportunities for girls in sports during their formative years benefits them later in life.
Among women between ages 20 and 80 who played sports in their youth, 69% hold at least one formal leadership role outside of the family. The Women in Sports Foundation says that 80% of women who are Fortune 500 CEOs played sports in their earlier years.
The message is clear: Girls benefit exponentially from equitable access to quality sports in school.
SB 41 seeks to help level the playing field for Georgia girls by providing equal athletic opportunities by enforcing common sense guidelines, including:
- Bar students from being treated differently based on gender
- Require schools to provide equal compensation, medical and training facilities and supplies for boys and girls sports teams
- Commensurate compensation for girls coaches based on “actual time” in the sports season
- Require equitable publicity/media
Georgia’s female athletes need real solutions to their real problems. Our trans girls are the farthest problem from what is actually hindering our kids’ ability to play.
We have a long way to go to level the playing field in girls sports. So let’s solve our real problems by passing SB 41.
Kim Jackson is the Georgia state senator for District 41 in DeKalb County.
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