New mom and marathoner Natalie Daniels was booted from her running club for saying that people who identify as transgender should not compete against biological women in sports.
When Daniels began training for the Boston Marathon just a few months postpartum, she interviewed with the organization XX-XY Athletics, a clothing brand which aims to protect women’s sports. Daniels, a five-time marathon winner, advocated for keeping the women’s category solely for biological women.
This series of interviews came just after the Boston Marathon allowed a biological male identifying as female to qualify in the women’s division. Although the Boston Marathon has three categories—male, female, and non-binary—organizers nevertheless allowed the biological male into the women’s category.
After Daniels spoke out against the unfairness of the decision, Olympian Nikki Hiltz went viral on TikTok, criticizing Daniels. “If you want to throw a fit and be like, ‘I want to drop out,’ then drop out,” Hiltz said. “This person forgot what the point of a marathon is. It’s to complete 26.2 miles and maybe make some friends along the way. Trans women are not stopping you from doing that.”
Hiltz, a biological female who identifies as non-binary, argued that because Daniels was not in the running for the top three awards in the marathon, she shouldn’t complain about having a competitor who identified as transgender.
Daniels responded in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. “I am a very competitive person, and I think there are a lot of women who are finishing … even 900th or 901st, who are also competitive. They’re competing for that next spot,” Daniels said. “… [O]ne of the goals that I had going into Boston was to finish in the top 100 women. And so, I was kind of looking ahead of me … and thinking, you know, ‘What if she’s 101st?’”
Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch, a former NCAA Division I athlete, weighed in on the matter with The Washington Stand. “Keeping women’s sports for biological women only isn’t about who comes in first or second—it’s about keeping the playing field fair. Without a fair playing field, competition is pointless,” Szoch insisted. “There is a respect that is earned on the track, court, or playing field. But that respect is never earned by cheaters or those who compete unfairly.”
Because of Daniels’s stand for biological truth, she received criticism not just from Hiltz, but from her own running club. They told her she was barred from wearing their merchandise during the Boston Marathon since her views did not reflect their opinions.
After the race, her club demanded she apologize for what she’d said or be ousted from the group. She did not apologize. Instead, she started her own running club with XX-XY Athletics, called Team Women.
Her old running group is in the minority, according to nationwide polling. A New York Times survey earlier this year showed near-consensus against biological men in women’s sports. Almost 80% reject the idea that trans-identifying athletes should compete on or against girls—including 67% of Democrats.
Their decision is also at odds with the Donald Trump administration’s executive orders on gender ideology. Earlier this year, the president barred biological males who identify as female from women’s sports in college and K-12 schools.
Despite his order, males who identify as transgender continue to compete against biological women in sports. Recently, the West Virginia governor, Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, spoke out against a 13-year-old biological male identifying as a girl competing in a West Virginia state track meet.
“It’s wrong and unfair,” Morrisey said on Facebook. “I’m again urging officials to keep separate scores so that the true winners can be awarded once we win in court.”
The court reference he made was a federal appeals court decision that West Virginia is appealing to the Supreme Court. After West Virginia made a law barring males identifying as females from women’s sports, the court ruled that it did not apply to someone who was of the age to be in middle school and who had been taking puberty blockers from a very young age.
Trump’s executive order has recently been making headway in California. The California Interscholastic Federation changed its rules, scoring biological males identifying as female separately from biological women. The California Interscholastic Federation is also allowing women to compete in sports where they previously were unable to qualify, since students identifying as transgender had qualified for limited spots in the women’s division.
That had been one of Daniels’s concerns with the Boston Marathon. Only a limited number of women could qualify for the race, and one of the spots was filled by a male identifying as female. “I find it very demeaning,” Daniels told Fox News. “We’re not professional athletes, but that doesn’t mean that our value and our work that we put into what we do is any less worthy of integrity in our race results.”
But is making a separate category for people who identify as transgender going to solve the problem? Szoch doesn’t think so. “[T]here should be a category for men and a category for women,” Szoch said. “While I feel for people with gender dysphoria, we shouldn’t be legitimizing their belief that somehow God created them in the wrong body.”
Originally published by The Washington Stand.