Editor’s note: This letter was sent to the chairperson and executive director of Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association and others.
I write as an experienced former legal counsel to your predecessor, the Delaware Secondary School Athletic Association, and as the attorney most involved about 45 years ago in insuring equal pay for female athletic coaches in Delaware and the benefits of the Title IX laws which uplifted the sports opportunities for women in high schools throughout Delaware at that time.
On November 24th WDEL News reported that the DIAA is forming a Transgender Policy Sub-Committee to consider changes or additions to its rules relating to athletic competition by transgendered students.
As a concerned citizen I am petitioning you as the Government and request to participate as a member of that Committee to guarantee that all sides of this public issue are considered.
On September 15, 2021, the Independent Women's Law Center in Washington D.C. issued its comprehensive report entitled Competition: Title IX, Male-Bodied Athletes, and the Threat To Women's Sports, which aims to help athletic associations, policymakers, and courts understand the threat to female athletes and women's sports arising from transgender participation in high school and higher athletics.
https://www.iwf.org/2021/09/15/iwlc-iwf-release-report-on-the-growing-threat-to-womens-sports/
Indeed, the complexity of this issue is demonstrated by the news report that a 22-year-old former University of Pennsylvania male swim team member from 2017-20 now participates on that school’s women's swim team as a transgender female and she is smashing women's swim records throughout the sport. Reportedly she is winning races by nearly 7 seconds over her biological female competitors!
I await your response on this matter of pressing public concern to female high school athletes throughout Delaware.
Thomas S. Neuberger
Wilmington
