“I’m A Two-Time Olympian and I Want Protections for Women's Sports”

Feb 21

Letter Submitted by Francie G.

I competed on the 1968 and 1972 U.S. Olympic teams in 800 and 1500 meters. I began training at 14 when I was lucky enough to be spotted in my physical education class as a talented runner. My teacher and her husband were looking for a girl to train for the Olympics because they saw that U.S. women had not done well in the Rome Olympics in 1960.

If I had not had this opportunity, I do not know what would have become of me, a very shy young girl who had few friends and no confidence, and no goals at a time when girls were discouraged from virtually every future professional goal open to boys.

“I would never have had the life and experiences I have enjoyed — or achieved any measure of self-worth — if I had not had the opportunity to compete against other girls and women.”

— Francie G.

So my careful and light training began, and after a few months, my coach made a miscalculation and set up a match race between the two fastest boys in the ninth grade in my junior high school and me, because, in the 600-yard run-walk test, I had posted the fastest time of both boys and girls in the school.

However, the two mature boys showed up with spiked shoes and beat me soundly with my embarrassment enjoyed by the entire school and readers of the local newspaper where the photo of the race was aired.

After that, I never raced a male again and knew that they enjoyed major advantages in size, strength, and endurance as the two boys I raced were tall, muscular and had had opportunities in sports already that I had never had. They had obviously reached puberty sometime before, and it showed. I returned to training and, in two more years, won a national junior title. I trained alone and had no school teams, scholarships, or many opportunities to compete. Eventually, several young men who were not on college teams began training with me and helped me get through the tough training.

After my freshman year in college, I made my first U.S. national team and, two years later, my first Olympic team, having set a world record in the 600-yard run in Madison Square Garden and the American record for 800 meters in Boston Garden.

While in college, to fund the few trips I was able to make to competitions, I worked as a waitress in a local restaurant while my male counterparts on the track team ambled off to their comfortable dorms and fraternities after practice while enjoying full athletics scholarships and large numbers of paid for competitions. I continued to train after the 1968 Olympics, moved up to the 1500 meters, and was a semifinalist in the 1972 Munich Olympics.

I would never have had the life and experiences I have enjoyed — or achieved any measure of self-worth — if I had not had the opportunity to compete against other biological girls and women. After a long hard battle, the passage of Title IX finally ensured that girls and women who came after me enjoyed full opportunities.

To take any of this away from even a single female in favor of a male who has reached puberty and identifies as a female would be a travesty, and it is happening now.

It must stop. I do not have anything against whatever anyone wishes to be except if they take rights away from girls and women that have been so hard won.

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