Former collegiate women’s soccer player fighting for ‘fair and safe playing field’
Former W. Va. State University soccer player Lainey Armistead and Alliance Defending Freedom’s Matt Sharp discuss their efforts to defend women’s sports.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends Weekend" on Saturday, a former West Virginia State University women's soccer player stood up firmly for women's sports and for keeping transgender women — or biological males — out of athletic competitions against women for the sake of fairness, a level playing field and the very future of women's sports.
Lainey Armistead is asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on her appeal against the ACLU (the American Civil Liberties Union) as she battles for a fair playing field for women athletes.
"I grew up with brothers, and we were a soccer family," Armistead said on the program.
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"My dad coached us and I would try to play with the boys. And a lot of times I would get hurt, you know, even [when] they would try to take it easy."
Armistead added, "It was such an inherent biological difference. They were always fitter, faster and stronger than me."
Former West Virginia State University soccer player Lainey Armistead appeared on "Fox and Friends Weekend" to discuss why she's standing up for West Virginia's law banning trans athletes from competing against women. "I worked my entire life to get a soccer scholarship," she said. "I don't want to see other women [have] that taken away from them." (Alliance Defending Freedom )
She said that once she "heard about the West Virginia law, I just definitely wanted to step in and defend it because women's sports means so much to me."
She noted, "I worked my entire life to get a soccer scholarship — and I don't want to see other women getting that taken away from them."
"We just want a fair and safe playing field."
The ACLU is making an argument, noted "Fox & Friends Weekend" cohost Will Cain, that under the equal protection clause in Title IX, boys should be able to identify as girls and therefore play women's sports.
And "they're alleging [it] would be sex discrimination" to keep boys out of women's sports, he also noted.
For West Virginia State University soccer player Lainey Armistead is shown on the field. The West Virginia law, she said, designates a safe and fair playing field for women — "women who have been fighting so long for equality in sports." (Alliance Defending Freedom )
But why is "identification even part of the calculus?" said Cain.
Matt Sharp, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), said during the same appearance on Saturday morning, "That's exactly why West Virginia, and 17 other states, passed laws like this. They recognized that there are physiological differences between men and women. And those differences matter on the playing field."
"We're hopeful that the court will recognize that West Virginia and other states have a duty to protect fairness in women's sports."
And if "you allow one male to play on a women's team — you're eventually saying, ‘Any male can play on a women’s team,' and that erases women's opportunities in sports."
He said Alliance Defending Freedom and Lainey Armistead "are helping to defend West Virginia's law all the way to the Supreme Court."
Does he have a sense of where the high court "could land on this new issue of transgender athletes in sports?"
While no one can predict future court rulings, Sharp said he feels optimistic about it.
"We're hopeful the court will recognize that West Virginia and other states have a duty to protect fairness in women's sports … and to ultimately uphold West Virginia's law."
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Chiming in on why the high court should uphold West Virginia's law banning transgender females from women's sports, she said, "What the West Virginia law creates [is] a place for everyone — [it] just designates where that place should be, [in terms of] the athletic field and … the women who have been fighting so long for equality in sports."
She added, "It's not fair. And we just want a fair and safe playing field."
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As she previously wrote in a Fox News op-ed, "As a woman who has lived and breathed soccer since I was old enough to walk, I [want] to help defend the state’s law that ensures equal opportunities for women in sports."
To learn more, watch the video at the top of this article, or click here to access it.
