Another winning transgender athlete lands Connecticut’s policy on hot seat

The saying goes that you get more of what you reward, and in Connecticut, that apparently means transgender athletes in girls’ track and field.

West Hartford high jumper Lizzy Bidwell, who is reportedly transgender, took first place earlier this month at the New England High School Indoor Track & Field Championship, a few years after trans runners Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood combined to capture 15 state championships and break 17 meet records from 2017-20.

Not only did Bidwell win, but the Conard High School junior notched the year’s highest indoor girls’ jump in the state and third highest in the nation with her 5’9” leap, surpassing her 2023 personal best by a whopping nine inches, as shown on Athletic.net.

Critics of transgender athletes in female sports weren’t surprised. At a time when national and international sports bodies are tightening up their transgender-eligibility rules — 25 states have banned male-born athletes in female sports altogether — Connecticut is going the opposite direction.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s transgender policy allows athletes to compete based on gender identity as long as the school district verifies that the “gender identity is bona fide and not for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage in competitive athletics.”

“Connecticut was definitely Ground Zero for male athletes competing in girls’ sports,” Independent Council on Women’s Sports co-founder Marshi Smith told The Washington Times. “It was Ground Zero for awareness that this is potentially happening. And it continues to happen.”

Two years before transgender swimmer Lia Thomas burst onto the scene, the Alliance Defending Freedom sued Connecticut in 2020 on behalf of four high school female runners who had lost to Miller and Yearwood, arguing that the transgender eligibility policy violated Title IX.

In January, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the girls’ favor, saying the athletes “have plausibly stated an injury in fact” and sending the case back to the trial court, which had previously ruled the matter moot because the girls no longer attend high school.

Christiana Kiefer, ADF senior counsel, said that “Connecticut continues to drag its feet in restoring fair play for women and girls, and as a result, female athletes are still losing out on podium spots, opportunities to advance, and deserved recognition for their achievements.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents intervenors Miller and Yearwood, argued that the plaintiffs had also at various times bested the transgender athletes, arguing that there is “enough room on the victory podium for transgender girls too.”

“Under Title IX, all girls, including transgender girls, should be able to participate fully and equally in athletics, in accordance with who they are,” said Joshua Block, ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project attorney in a June statement.

Christy Mitchell, whose daughter Chelsea Mitchell is one of the plaintiffs, said the 2013 CIAC policy is “very outdated at this point,” but that the association “continues to ignore basic science.”

“They are definitely out of step with biological reality,” she said. “The policy not only deprives young women and girls of basic fairness, but also rejects the basic biological facts we all know: Males have inherent physical advantages over women.”

Despite the concerns, Connecticut is plowing ahead. The Democrat-controlled Legislature is seeking to enshrine transgender rights in the state constitution with a proposed amendment that would ban discrimination based on “pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.”

Five House Republicans urged the Legislature last month to raise a Save Women’s Sports bill, but the proposal was promptly decried by Democrats and LGBTQ groups. The concept has yet to receive a bill number, as required in this year’s short session.

The Out Accountability Project of Connecticut said such bills “are motivated by a partisan desire to harm a specific segment of the population.”

“If CT truly wants to support girls’ sports, they would provide more funding, create more opportunities to play, and enact stronger laws that protect female athletes from harassment and abuse—not banning transgender youth from participating in school sports with their peers,” said the project in a statement.

‘We deserve to have a discussion’

Elsewhere, however, lawmakers and policymakers are tipping the scales toward fairness versus inclusion in female sports.

World Athletics, the international track-and-field authority, tightened its rules last year, deciding that male-to-female athletes may enter women’s world-rankings contests as long as they have not undergone male puberty and have kept their testosterone in serum below 2.5 nmol/L “continuously” since puberty.

Miller and Yearwood would not have been able to clear that hurdle — both had undergone male puberty and Miller had competed previously in boys’ high school track — but it’s possible that Bidwell could.

Bidwell’s transgender identity was revealed publicly in a Feb. 27 article in Reduxx, which cited public records indicating that Bidwell’s name was changed in 2017 from “Lucas” to “Lizzy” in Georgia, where the family lived before moving to Connecticut.

“Bidwell was transitioned at an extremely early age, and his parents legally changed his name to ‘Lizzy’ when he was between the age of 9 and 10,” said Reduxx, a feminist publication that opposes biological males in female sports. “His parents appear to have increasingly sought to conceal his biological sex over the years.”

At the same time, Lizzy’s mother Carla Bidwell has been active on transgender issues. She signed a 2018 letter in Teen Vogue to the Trump administration from “Parents and families of transgender youth” that identified her as a “Parent of a Transgender Person.”

Carla Bidwell also signed a 2018 Human Rights Campaign letter from “parents of transgender children” to then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and an HRC “Declaration of Transgender Rights” from “parents of transgender children.”

“We seek for our children, and all transgender people, protections from discrimination, violence, and harassment in all public spaces, including restrooms, as a fundamental right of all people no matter their state or zip code,” said the declaration.

Other records indicate that Lizzy Bidwell is an only child. The Bidwells have not reacted publicly on the report or confirmed her transgender identity. The Washington Times has reached out to them for comment.

A CIAC spokesperson said the association has no comment on Bidwell’s participation in girls’ sports.

Bidwell’s best indoor event is the high jump, but the student-athlete was also a top competitor in the long jump, placing fifth in February at the CIAC State Open Girls Indoor Track & Field Championship.

Bidwell is expected to compete in the spring outdoor girls’ track-and-field season. Last year, she placed in the top 10 in the triple jump in 10 meets, notching five first-place finishes, while also competing in the high jump and long jump.

Most male-to-female transgender athletes are easily identified as biologically male. Not Bidwell. Her appearance and even her voice—typically the surefire giveaway — are more in line with those of a teenage girl than boy, as shown in a recent video interview.

Given that Bidwell may not have undergone male puberty, does that make her participation in girls’ athletics okay? ICONS co-founder Kim Jones says no, arguing that “every male does have physical advantages over females regardless of puberty or testosterone suppression.”

“At every stage, males and females have different bone structure, muscle structure, limb ratios, ligaments, injury susceptibility, lean body mass, and, obviously, impacts from their reproductive systems,” she said. “No male can become a female. No male will go through female development. No male can undo or reboot the male development path that is male advantage.”

Bidwell wasn’t the only transgender athlete at the New England finals. Maelle Jacques, a sophomore at Kearsarge High School in North Sutton, New Hampshire, placed 14th in the high jump after winning the state title last month.

In New Hampshire, however, the Republican-led Legislature is considering a Protection of Women’s Sports bill that would require athletes from K-12 to collegiate sports to compete based on their sex at birth. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has not said whether he would sign such a bill.

Leslie Wolfgang, public policy director for the Family Institute of Connecticut, said there’s plenty of frustration on the ground over the CIAC policy, but that many people are “scared of their kids being targeted if as a parent they speak up.”

“We’re trying to show this is a reasonable discussion and we deserve to have a discussion here in Connecticut,” she said. “It’s been a CIAC rule that they’re going to allow this, but we haven’t had a true discussion that involves the public up at the legislature. That’s what we hope to get more and more as awareness grows.”