Governor Kristi Noem’s Weekly Column: Fairness in Girls’ Sports Matters 

@SoDakCampaigns

Fairness in Girls’ Sports Matters
By Governor Kristi Noem
January 14, 2022

This week, the 2022 legislative session kicked off, and I presented my State of the State address to the people of South Dakota. I described how South Dakota is stronger than it has ever been in its 133-year history. This did not happen because of what government did. It happened because of what government did NOT do. To preserve what we have and grow even stronger, we need to remember why government exists in the first place – to protect the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  

One way a young girl exercises her liberty is on the fields and in the gyms of South Dakota: playing basketball, swimming competitively, and running track, just to name a few popular sports here in the Mount Rushmore state. It is in playing sports that a young girl can learn how to achieve and how to succeed. But some in our society want to take those opportunities to succeed away from our young women.  Some schools and organizations across the country have sought to take away their freedom to achieve by changing the rules of the games.  

When our children participate in sports and activities, they learn valuable lessons like teamwork, perseverance, and hustle. For many activities, the playing field is level for boys and girls: debate, theater, and academic competitions, to name a few. But for other activities, the playing field is not equal between boys and girls because of basic, common-sense biology.   

Allyson Felix is an American track and field star. She has won 25 Olympic and World Championship medals, including 17 gold medals, the most of any track and field athlete ever – male or female. She specialized in the 400-meter race, with a lifetime best of forty-nine-point-two-six seconds. Yet HUNDREDS of high school aged boys have run faster times than that. Common sense tells us why. Boys’ and girls’ bodies are biologically different.  

In South Dakota, only girls can play in girls’ sports according to the executive orders I signed almost a year ago. To advance that action even further, earlier this month I asked the Legislature to introduce my bill ensuring fairness in girls’ sports. 

Congress passed Title IX years ago to guarantee that girls have a level playing field on which they can succeed — to ensure their liberty to achieve. They can win high school championships, maybe earn scholarships, maybe even go on to play professional sports. We need to protect the freedom of our young girls to go out there and do it.   

How do we achieve this through the legislature? 

We will establish a framework that will allow parents to challenge schools that allow students who are born male at birth to compete in girls’ sports. The legislation I am proposing includes the ability for a parent to hold schools accountable in court. Parents will be able to sue to play, not to pay. This is not about creating financial windfalls — it is about ensuring parents have the tools to fight for their daughter’s ability to compete on a level playing field.  

This issue matters to me for many reasons. I participated in high school sports. I wasn’t as good as my two daughters, Kassidy and Kennedy, who both played college sports. If my girls had competed against men, their ability to compete would have been dramatically limited. Participating in college sports teaches teamwork, leadership, work ethic, and grit. It develops talent and skills. I would not have wanted my daughters to miss out on such an opportunity. 

 I have led the charge on this issue for years. When the USDA tried to force boys and girls to compete against each other in 4-H Rodeo, I led the fight to protect fairness for girls.  And we won in 2018 because we approached the fight in a smart way.  

Now we will make sure we have the strongest law in the country. 

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35 thoughts on “Governor Kristi Noem’s Weekly Column: Fairness in Girls’ Sports Matters ”

      1. It is clear that the Labor Secretary and the Governor lied.

        I was wondering the same thing.

        Talk about fairness in the sport of life

  2. Just announce for 2024 and get it over with. This state is not your personal campaign banner.

    1. Everything about Noem is fake. Fake riding a motorcycle, fake hunting pics, fake horseback riding. Everything she does is to put on a fake image.

        1. She grew up on a farm. lol Are you even from South Dakota? Dead giveaway you are not. You fell for her marketing campaign hook line and sinker.

  5. Noem will go down in history as one of our finest Governors. Noem is confident and decisive. The people of South Dakota are proud of our Governor and her popularity increases each day. She will win re-election in a landslide.

    2. Ha ha ha I needed a good laugh. Noem is horrible, just ask the public. I haven’t heard one good thing about her from anyone.

      1. I haven’t heard one good thing about her from anyone.

        You must live in Dakota Free Press.

  6. A Sioux Falls candidate Mike Z. claimed South Dakota does not need NCAA or the Summit League and that South Dakota could form it’s own league for college sports. Bring back a quasi-SDIC? South Dakota does not need those companies that are inclusive.

    2. so this person is gaslighting us into thinking the bill Noem vetoed wouldn’t have excluded everybody who consumes performance-enhancing drugs like caffeine, albuterol, adderal, etc from competition AND didn’t allow student athletes to sue school districts for “indirect injuries” like bruised egos and hurt feelings. Barring kids with asthma and ADHD from physical activities seems to be not what their doctors would recommend. Those are the kids who need it.
      It also excluded any girl with Turner’s Syndrome who takes estrogen or any boy with Klinefelters Syndrome who takes testosterone from participating in sports. There’s a lot of irony in that factoid: kicking out the girls who want to be girls and the boys who want to be boys, but due to their chromosomes need extra hormones to get there.

      And then the caffeine issue: caffeine is the performance enhancing drug almost everybody uses, except Mormons, and there aren’t enough Mormons to fill all the rosters.
      She vetoed garbage. Deal with it.

  9. My comments were deleted. Never in the history of time have the people who suppressed speech been on the right side of history. Did I lie or something. I even put my name on it. You want my address too.

    1. We’re endowed by our Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the suppression of speech?

      A forum is a place of open public discussion. SDWC isn’t a forum and never has been.

    2. I wonder…..are you a DFP fan? Do you feel the same way about the way Herr Heidelberger deletes comment that are inconvenient to the dictate?

      1. I’ve only noticed Mr. Heidelberger has a strict no-anons policy. However, and this is what your dear leader 45 doesn’t understand, the owner of a forum has the right to refuse to publish submissions. If a blog owner or social medium was required by government to publish all submissions, wouldn’t that be just as bad as government telling you what yard signs you had to display?

        1. “I’ve only noticed Mr. Heidelberger has a strict no-anons policy.”

          Well no kidding….I can’t imagine why you don’t see posts that he deletes.

          I know several people who post on the little guy’s propaganda rag and he deletes those posts because they are inconvenient to his dictate.

          1. Cory Heidelberger also alters what you typed to fit his agenda. That is a serious ethical issue but no surprise besides deleting comments too. Plenty of S. Dak Dems are glad he is gone!

      2. I’m a conservative. I sure ain’t a Republican. I laugh when people say SD is a conservative state. How can SD be a conservative state when the number 2 industry is government at over twice what tourism is.

      4. Try this…..quote him directly advocating something and then quote him again standing against the very same thing he was advocating (the state sales tax issue). Your post will never appear as he will delete it immediately.

        1. Could his Do As I say not as I do and other issues be the reaon he got his clocked cleaned every time he ran for public office?

  11. All the haters (Dems) come out of the woodwork when they have a chance to criticize. They shouldn’t be allowed on this sight if you ask me. Kristi has done a fantastic job of maintaining our freedoms in South Dakota. You can see the proof by the number of people that are moving to our state. I wish the haters that commented on this post would leave and make room for those patriots that want to live here and enjoy our freedoms that Governor Noem is fighting hard to keep for us all. Can’t thank Governor Noem enough for all she’s done and all the arrows she’s taken for us. Thank you, Kristi!

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