Whenever Republicans try to talk about men competing in women’s sports, Democrats reach for the same excuse. They insist the problem is too small to bother with.
The Democrat Party has a long and sordid record of waving this issue away like it’s just being exaggerated for partisan purposes.
“This is not really an issue like in Michigan,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said in March 2025 while explaining his opposition to the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. “I think there are hundreds of thousands of athletes, there’s like two individuals that are actually in this situation.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom read the same talking points. “You’re talking about a very small number of people, very small number of athletes,” he said. He went on to claim the issue had been “weaponized by the right to be 10 times, 100 times, bigger than it is.”
Former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki made the same argument to her show on MSNBC (now MSNOW), telling viewers the issue wasn’t even worth debating. Psaki claimed “there are incredibly few examples of transgender girls playing in youth sports, and when we do see these examples, there is no evidence that these kids are a threat to safety or fairness. When I say few examples, I mean that if you count the instances of transgender girls playing youth sports in any single state, the number often rounds to zero.”
Her proof was Utah, which had one.
Democrats Walk Out on Women's Sports
This week, Senate Democrats went a step further and boycotted a hearing on this very issue. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “Standing Up for Women in Sports: Ensuring Opportunity, Fairness and Safety for Female Athletes.” Committee Democrats boycotted it and offered no witnesses of their own. Before they left, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the panel’s top Democrat, followed Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) with an opening statement that wrote off the whole hearing. Durbin argued the topic doesn’t crack the top 10, and maybe not even the top 20, of issues Americans want Congress to handle. More people, he suggested, care about getting “damn cell phones” out of their kids’ schools.
Durbin then leaned on NCAA President Charlie Baker, the former liberal Republican governor of Massachusetts. According to Durbin, Baker told him there are fewer than 10 known transgender athletes among roughly half a million college athletes.
“This vendetta against a small number of people in the trans community affects everyone,” Durbin claimed. His reasoning was that even “cisgender girls” (the Left’s invented label for real girls) would have to endure “inappropriate gender verification checks” to keep male athletes out of their competitions.
Yeah, that’s not how it works.
The Democrats’ message could not be clearer. As far as they’re concerned, this is small potatoes, and the Senate has no business wasting its time on it. A new study just blew that argument apart.
The Numbers Democrats Don't Want You to See
On Tuesday, the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) released research timed to the hearing. Drawing on HeCheated’s database of documented cases of males competing in female events going back to the mid-1980s, the group found that trans-identifying males have competed in more than 14,301 women’s events at the amateur and professional levels. Along the way, they took more than 2,293 gold medals from women and girls in the United States.
Think about what each of those medals represents.
Every time a male takes first place, the rightful champion drops to second, the real runner-up to third, and another girl misses her moment on the podium entirely. Each stolen medal has a ripple effect that hurts multiple girls at once.
The money adds up too. According to the report, trans-identifying males have pocketed more than $501,498 in prize money from women in professional sports, and that cash belonged to the female athletes they beat. In California alone, more than 611 women and girls finished second to a male competing in the women’s category. That’s Newsom’s state, where the governor assures everyone we’re talking about “a very small number of people.” Every one of these figures has climbed since CWALAC’s previous report in July 2025.
Now, here’s why the Democrats’ math falls apart.
Durbin and Peters count the male athletes, while the study counts the women who lost to them. A single male competitor on a high school track team can enter several events per meet and a dozen meets per season. Over a career, that one athlete can push dozens of girls out of titles, podium spots, and trips to the state finals. Baker’s snapshot of current NCAA rosters says nothing about the high school meets, amateur races, and professional events where the damage piles up. And because HeCheated tracks only recorded cases, 2,293 is the floor, not the ceiling.
“It is shockingly unfair for biological women to have to compete against trans-identifying men,” said Penny Nance, CWALAC’s president and CEO. “Our research finding that trans-identifying males have stolen over 2,293 gold medals from women in the United States is an outrage. Biological men have distinct advantages over biological women. This reality not only puts women in harm’s way, but it eliminates opportunities for biological women to earn a living and win competitions. Congress must act to protect biological women.”
“Congress should pass the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 (H.R.28/S.9) to prohibit federally funded school athletic programs from allowing males to compete in women’s and girls’ sports; the Protection of Women in Olympic and Amateur Sports Act (H.R.1028/S. 405) to clarify that sports National Governing Bodies must designate women’s sports for women only under their Congressional authorization; and The Title IX Clarification Act (H.R. 8781/S.5179) to clarify that, for purposes of Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities, the term ‘sex’ refers solely to an individual’s biological status as male or female,” Nance added.
Democrats also appear to be misreading voters as badly as they misread the numbers. CWA found that 69.3% of Americans say it is very or somewhat important to their vote this election that candidates oppose forcing female athletes to compete against, and share locker rooms with, biological males who identify as female.
“How many more women and girls will be subjected to an uneven playing field?” Nance asked. “It’s time to put an end to this inherent unfairness and protect women’s sports.”
Democrats had a chance to answer that question on Wednesday, and they walked out instead. Meanwhile, the women who lost more than 2,293 gold medals and more than half a million dollars in prize money to male competitors are still waiting for someone in the Democrat Party to decide that real girls matter.