Elizabeth Eddy is a defender for Angel City FC and has a long and storied career in professional women’s soccer. She is a lifelong Californian, a Christian, and is getting married in December. However, she made headlines in recent days after writing an op-ed in the New York Post, in which she politely asked the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) to develop a clear standard for gender confusion in their sport.
Addressing this challenge entails remembering why women’s sports categories exist in the first place: not to exclude but to create a space where female athletes can physically compete on equal footing. Studies show measurable differences between men and women in muscle mass, bone density and cardiovascular capacity, which directly affect competitive outcomes. Further research has found male muscular advantage is only “minimally reduced” — by about 5% over 12 months — by testosterone suppression.
Fairness and inclusion are core American values. Reasonable people can disagree about where to draw lines, but avoiding the conversation altogether by shutting out diverse views does not serve us. In fact, we owe it to current and future female athletes to solve this.
The NWSL must adopt a clear standard. One option is all players must be born with ovaries, as the FA requires. Another option is an SRY gene test, like those World Athletics and World Boxing implemented.
She offers ideas and solutions, even suggesting a middle road — an open division whereby those who don’t qualify still have a chance to compete, make money, and succeed.
Predictably, her op-ed was met with open hostility from her teammates, who decided that her article was not only transphobic but also racist. “We don’t agree with the things written for a plethora of reasons,” teammate Sarah Gorden stated, “but mostly the undertones come across as transphobic and racist as well. The article calls for genetic testing on certain players, and it has a photo of an African player as a headline. That’s very harmful, and to me, it’s inherently racist because to single out this community based on them looking or being different is absolutely a problem. As a mixed woman, with a black family, I’m devastated by the undertones of this article.”
These women are getting mad at their teammate for supporting … women. Eddy was merely asking for clear standards.
Soccer is very pro-LGBTQ+, so Eddy’s voice is a deviation from the status quo. As New York Post columnist Kirsten Fleming points out, “The issue of keeping female sports female has become an 80/20 issue in our country, so I don’t think people understood just how ballsy it was for Eddy to enter the fray.”
Women’s soccer was hoping to stay under the radar. After all, Megan Rapinoe is no longer the radical voice for women’s soccer and thus no longer leading its activism. That does not mean the NWSL isn’t full of both very woke players and players who’d rather keep quiet about their real opinions.
Eddy responded to her teammates on Fox News, and her rebuttal was marvelous. “Responsible people can disagree on this topic,” she said, “but there is no need to go to bullying and name-calling. It doesn’t set a good example for anyone.” She went on to declare that her teammates are still her friends and that they are still invited to her wedding. However, she believes that remaining silent on this issue will hurt future young female players. “I hope to have many daughters, and for them looking forward, that’s the reason I decided this is worth it.”
The fight for women-only sports starts at the middle and high school levels. Young girls’ confidence is being crushed and their potential squandered because they are unfairly being coerced to compete against gender-confused boys. They are also placed in dangerous situations by being forced to change in locker rooms with young men masquerading as young women. Once this fight gets to the professional level, there are financial stakes as well.
This fight is far from over, and those women who are remaining silent out of fear need to speak out, stand together, and fight for their sports. Eddy is just the first. Who else is going to support women?
