I was born in the early 50’s, a girl between 2 brothers, in a family with love, support and encouragement to follow your own path and dreams (as long as you were kind, moral and played by the rules). Consequently, I followed by 16 months older brother and did what he did (football, baseball, riding bikes, etc) with the guys. I was fully accepted and it was no issue with my parents. I became a competitive swimmer at 7 and continued (with some pauses to do other things) through college. I played interscholastic basketball, softball and soccer in jr high. It wasn’t until high school, after we moved to a different state that I realized that girls could be discriminated against. Our state ditched girls’ sports in high school to allow for boys’ JV sports once a school got to a certain size. It was devastating and I worked hard to force them to have basketball 2 years and tennis my senior year (not many games as other schools didn’t have teams). I went to an enlightened university with women’s sports before they were forced into it and played field hockey and softball, in addition to swimming. I was offered a scholarship by my swim coach (took 1/2 scholarship from the men, but was vetoed by university president). Over the years, women finally gained many opportunities I could only have dreamed of. I am grateful for opportunities I did have, and for the many opportunities my daughter had. And now we have gone backwards and women are totally disrespected and made unsafe by allowing men to compete in women’s sports and allowing them in women’s locker rooms and bathrooms. I have problems with anyone’s chosen “identity”. But it doesn’t change your biological gender, and the differences don’t suddenly go away. Ban biological men from girls and women’s sports.