On Tuesday, The Conservative Review posted an article about the Harrison County Middle School Championships in West Virginia. Five girls from a local middle school refused to participate in the shot put because a biological male was competing. As a result of their actions, the girls were not permitted to compete is a scheduled track and field meet on April 27, 2024.
The article explains what caused the problem:
Blaze News reported that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals just days prior to the meet ruled in a 2-1 decision that a West Virginia law requiring every student athlete to participate in accordance with their biological sex violates the Title IX rights of Becky Pepper-Jackson — the student against whom the girls protested.
Pepper-Jackson — a biological male — has been living as a female and taking puberty blockers for years. AthleticNet said Pepper-Jackson of Bridgeport won the shot put final at the meet with a toss of 32 feet, 9 inches, easily besting the second-place finisher by more than three feet.
The shot put is about physical mechanics, but it also about upper-body strength. Generally speaking, boys have more upper-body strength than girls. It is no surprise that the male won the shot put final.
The article reports:
Parents of four of the five protesting girls filed the legal complaint against the Harrison County Board of Education.
The complaint states the girls attended an April 24 press conference addressing their protest. Attendees included Gaines and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Auditor J.B. McCuskey, along with several Republicans from the state Senate and House of Delegates, the complaint states.
The complaint also states that the next day — Thursday — the father of one of the girls “spoke with Lincoln Middle School principal Lori Scott,” who told him that the girls who protested “would not be permitted to compete in a scheduled track and field meet on April 27, 2024.”
The complaint also states that a father of another girl spoke with coach Dawn Riestenberg, who “informed him that his daughter would not be allowed to participate in the scheduled track and field meet on April 27.” The complaint adds that Riestenberg told the dad that the girls were barred from the meet because it was her job “to score points for the track team,” which the complaint says correlates to “the minor student athletes’ protest and subsequent appearance at a press conference to the decision to ban them from competition.”
This lunacy needs to stop.