By MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) penned this op-ed in National Review on the importance of protecting athletic opportunities for women and girls. Kennedy’s op-ed, which argues that it is unfair and unsafe to allow biological men to compete against biological women, initially ran in Louisiana’s Gannett-owned USA Today Network papers.
USA Today, however, removed the piece a few days after publication without notifying Kennedy’s team or its readers. USA Today later said that it had pulled the piece due to its “loaded language,” as reported by Fox News. USA Today said Kennedy could not use the phrase “biological male” in his op-ed about the physical differences between men and women.
Key excerpts of the op-ed, now published in National Review, are below:
“Many fair-minded people reject the idea that women and girls who work hard to develop their athletic talents must sacrifice their opportunities, privacy and safety to promote gender activism. I’m one of them.
“Louisiana is full of fair-minded people. We recognize that it’s common sense for boys and girls to compete in separate leagues. That’s why a bipartisan coalition in the Louisiana legislature passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act to prevent biological boys from competing against biological girls in our elementary and high schools and from sharing their locker rooms.
“Protecting women and girls in sports doesn’t need to be a partisan issue. Congress should follow Louisiana’s leadership and do more to protect girls, their sports, their scholarships, and their futures from a social experiment that is already proving to be unwise.”
Background:
- The Shreveport Times and seven other USA Today publications in Louisiana initially published Kennedy’s op-ed on May 11 and removed the piece a few days later without notifying Kennedy’s office. The USA Today network also failed to notify readers of the decision to remove Kennedy’s op-ed and instead published a “404” error message.
- Kennedy’s office reached out to the Shreveport Times about the “404” message on May 14. On May 20, USA Today told Kennedy’s office that it had removed the op-ed because of “loaded language,” including the phrase “biological male.”
- In a statement to Fox News, Kennedy condemned Gannett’s censorship, saying, “[The] USA Today Network apparently does not like the way I express myself. They think they are the speech police. Drunk on certainty and virtue, they think they are our moral teacher. This attitude is why so many Americans have lost confidence in the media. The media is not going to win that trust back until they return to neutrality instead of advocacy. Most people don’t support allowing biological men to participate in women’s sports because they think that will bastardize sports, skew the results, and hurt women. Other people disagree. Gannett should simply report the two sides and not try to silence the position it disagrees with.”
Read Kennedy’s full op-ed in National Review here.
Watch Kennedy’s speech on protecting women’s sports here.
