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After Losing to Male Athletes, College Runner Fights for Fairness in Women’s Sports

Mary Kate Marshall fell in love with track and cross-country in high school.

Running “gives me so much confidence,” Marshall said. Now an athlete at Idaho State University, Marshall is fighting for Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act—and for every woman’s and girl’s right to compete on a level playing field.

The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act prohibits biological men who “identify” as women from competing in women’s sports. Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed the legislation in March 2020, but the bill was quickly challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union. Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal nonprofit, represents Marshall and fellow Idaho State University track athlete Madison Kenyon in their efforts to reinstate the act and protect women’s sports.

Marshall and Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Christiana Holcomb join the “Problematic Women” podcast to explain the significance of the court battle for Idaho and for women’s sports across the nation.

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Also on today’s show, Melanie Israel, a policy analyst with the DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, explains what you need to know about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear arguments in a case that could upend the abortion precedent set by Roe v. Wade. And as always, we’ll be crowning our “Problematic Woman of the Week.”

Virginia Allen: I am so pleased to be joined by Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Christiana Holcomb and Idaho State University student athlete Mary Kate Marshall. Thank you both so much for being here.

Christiana Holcomb: Thank you for having us.

Mary Kate Marshall: Thank you for having us.

Allen: So, a couple of weeks ago, we shared a little bit with our listeners about the situation that’s going on in Idaho regarding the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. But, Christiana, I want to ask you to take us back to last year when Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act into law. Could you just explain what exactly the purpose of this legislation is?

Holcomb: Absolutely. Well, across the country, we’re seeing state athletic associations and lawmakers pass policies that allow biological males to come in and to dominate the girls’ category. One prominent example, of course, is what we’ve seen in Connecticut, and Alliance Defending Freedom is representing female athletes there, but also in the state of Idaho, where Mary Kate is from, a male athlete from the University of Montana dominated the female category. [He had] previously competed as a male, and in fact, set times that would’ve absolutely crushed the NCAA women’s record in those categories at that time.

So, Idaho looked at this, [and] lawmakers said that we don’t want to see girls in our state lose out on podium spots and advancement opportunities, championship titles, scholarship opportunities due to males competing in the girls’ category. So, they introduced the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act that was later signed by the governor, and just shortly thereafter challenged by the ACLU.


Allen: And why did the ACLU challenge this legislation?

Holcomb: Well, the ACLU believes that biological males who “identify” as female ought to have the right to compete in the girls’ category. And that flies in the face of commonsense, and frankly, nearly 50 years of law and policy in our country, where we’ve set aside the girls’ category for a reason. And that’s because we recognize there are inherent physical differences that give biological males an inherent athletic advantage over female athletes.

In fact, the studies show that males have on average a 10% to 50% performance advantage over comparably fit and trained female athletes. And so, if we want a future where girls like Mary Kate can be on the podium and can get the recognition that her hard work deserves, then we have to protect the integrity of women’s sports.

Allen: Absolutely. Mary Kate, this act, as Christiana has explained, it personally affects you. You are a student at Idaho State University, and I want to get into a little bit about why you signed onto this lawsuit in just a few minutes. But first, I would love to ask you a little bit about your experience running track. What races do you run?

Marshall: Yeah, my main event is 800 [meters], but I also do the 400 and the 1500, and mile indoors.

Allen: Those are hard races. I used to run as well, and I was much more of a short-distance runner. I always feel like the 400 was a tease. It’s, like, still a sprint, but not really. It’s a grueling race. What first got you into track?

Marshall: Well, I actually started running in eighth grade. I did track. And then into high school, I started doing cross-country and track, and that’s just when I fell in love with running and knew I wanted to do it in college, too.

Allen: So, what for you is the most rewarding part of running?

Marshall: Definitely just the feeling after I’m done running, and just, I like to call it a runner’s high. It’s just like I feel like I can keep going forever, and I just feel so good about myself and just it gives me so much confidence.

Allen: Oh, I love that. So, let’s talk a little bit about the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act and how it impacts you. As Christiana explained, the act is just intended to protect women’s sports and opportunities for women, and ensured that only women and girls can actually compete in women’s sports.

But when the governor signed the law in Idaho, it didn’t even have a chance to go into effect before the ACLU challenged it. Mary Kate, have you ever had to compete against a biological male in a track event?

Marshall: Yeah, actually my first collegiate cross-country race, I competed against a biological male. And going into it, I was already pretty nervous—my first college cross-country race, and this just made me so much more nervous. And after the race, I got beat by this athlete, and so did all of my other teammates. And it was just very disheartening to see one of our first races of the season and already we’re having to run against a biological male.

Allen: So, when you lined up, did you know that you were running against a biological male, or was it not until after the race that you found out? 

Marshall: Yeah, we actually found out a couple of weeks before our season that we were going to be competing against a biological male.

Allen: So, what was running through your head leading up to that race?

Marshall: I really didn’t know what to expect. I just know that males are much faster than females. So, how is this going to be fair? But I wanted to stay open-minded and see what’s going to happen, because we haven’t seen this before. And after the race, I knew this isn’t fair.

Allen: What were your thoughts following the race, and did that individual take first place?

Marshall: The athlete didn’t take first place, but this athlete was amongst the top 10, I believe. And it was just very discouraging to see this athlete up there and just knowing that however hard I train probably is not going to do anything, because this athlete has so much more advantages than I do. And I just knew that this was going to be an issue.

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Facing Backlash Over Anti-White Racist Interview Policy

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is facing backlash after announcing an anti-white racist plan to only allow “black and brown” reporters to interview her about her two year anniversary in office.

At least one Latino reporter who was granted an interview has cancelled in protest.

Lightfoot’s plan was made public on Tuesday after Mary Ann Ahern of NBC News tweeted it out.

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The Media’s COVID Origin Coverup Campaign Has Begun

David Frum is the first prominent journalist to fictionalize the debate over the origins of COVID, but he won’t be the last.

The Atlantic’s David Frum appears to be first out of the gate in what will likely become a coordinated, aggressive media campaign to defend the people and institutions that got the COVID-19 origin story wrong — and absolve them of all responsibility, however complicit they might be — and instead blame it all on Trump and his supporters.

It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s true. Frum thinks Trump and his tens of millions of supporters “are not interested in weighing the evidence” of the virus’s origins, and only want “payback for the political and cultural injuries inflicted on them by the scientists.” The whole thing, for them, is just “a weapon in a culture war here at home.”

Leaving aside the deep irony that Frum, of all people, is accusing anyone of not being interested in weighing the evidence, we need to understand this opening salvo for the retcon job it is. Frum is preemptively exonerating the gatekeepers and experts who resisted, and in some cases actively opposed, any discussion or serious inquiry into the possibility that COVID -19 didn’t emerge naturally but escaped from a lab in Wuhan.

If Trump and his supporters turn out to be right, then they’re right for the wrong reasons, says Frum. As Bret Weinstein noted, this is an attempt to “fictionalize the history” of the debate about COVID’s origins and “immunize” the corrupt people and institutions that were on the wrong side of that debate. (Frum, you have to admit, is the perfect person to lead the charge on this.)

The COVID Origin Debate Isn’t Going Away

The need for such a campaign has become apparent in recent days because the question of COVID’s origins isn’t going away. There are two main theories: either the virus naturally jumped from animal to humans, or it was being studied — and perhaps manipulated or enhanced — in a lab and accidentally escaped.

A much-criticized report issued in March by a World Health Organization-led team dismissed the idea that the virus could have escaped from a lab, calling it “extremely unlikely” despite the team having no access to relevant records or data in China. It concluded animal origin was the more likely of the two possibilities. The WHO-led team, which included scientists from China, devoted just four of 313 pages in its report to the possibility that the virus came from a lab.

Then last week, a group of prominent scientists published a letter in the journal Science calling for a deeper investigation, including the possibility that the virus escaped from a lab by accident. The letter’s signatories include some of the world’s leading coronavirus researchers. One of them is Dr. Ralph Baric, who collaborated with Dr. Shi Zheng-li, China’s foremost expert on bat viruses, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began. They were trying to enhance the ability of bat viruses to infect humans.

The letter came just days after Nicholas Wade, a veteran science reporter for Nature and The New York Times, published a long essay laying out in great detail the evidence behind both origin theories. The takeaway from Wade’s piece is that the lab leak theory has a mountain of circumstantial evidence to support it, while the animal theory has absolutely nothing.

Who’s Afraid Of the Truth?

So why did the entire corporate media dismiss the lab leak theory as some crazy conspiracy theory last year? Well, because Trump and his supporters suggested it. When Sen. Tom Cotton last February had the temerity to note on Fox News that the virus emerged not far from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, The New York Times ran with the headline: “Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins.”

Never mind that what Cotton actually said was rather mild: “We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there. But because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all.”

The Times’ reaction to Cotton was emblematic of corporate media at large. From the outset, very few journalists wanted to talk about the lab leak theory for fear of being tarred as a fringe conspiracy theorist. No major media organizations devoted resources to investigating the disease’s origin, and almost no prominent scientists came forward to ask the tough questions that some of them are asking now.

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George W. Bush Says He’s ‘Deeply Concerned’ About What Biden Is Doing in the Middle East

Former President George W. Bush said during a Fox News interview that aired Thursday that completely withdrawing U.S. armed forces from Afghanistan is not necessary and could create a vacuum in the region.

“I’ve always warned that no U.S. presence in Afghanistan will create a vacuum, and into that vacuum is likely to come people who treat women as second-class citizens,” Bush said during the interview.

“I’m also deeply concerned about the sacrifices of our soldiers, and our intelligence community, will be forgotten,” the former president said.

“And you know, was it necessary? I don’t think so,” Bush added.

The comments took place as Bush discussed his new book “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.” The title includes a collection of images featuring several paintings by the former president.

President Joe Biden announced in April that the 2,500 U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan would be pulled out by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

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NBC’s Chuck Todd Was Amy Klobuchar’s Landlord, Didn’t Disclose During Interviews and Coverage

In 2008, shortly after becoming a U.S. senator, Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and her husband, John Bessler, began renting a house in Arlington, Virginia, from Chuck Todd, then NBC News’ political director. I unveil the ties between Todd and Democratic campaigns in my explosive new book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruptions.

After Klobuchar’s campaign announcement, Todd offered viewers his analysis of Klobuchar’s candidacy. Her biggest asset, according to Todd? “Location, location, location.”

According to Page Six, which first reported the relationship, Klobuchar and her husband paid the Todds $3,200 a month. This relationship went undisclosed for years, even though Todd went on to question Klobuchar at least eight times on-air during her 2020 campaign, including as the moderator of two of the primary debates:

On June 26, 2019, Todd was one of the NBC moderators of the primary debate in which Klobuchar appeared:

On March 17,2019, Todd sat down with Klobuchar in Waterloo, Iowa, to discuss the campaign:

On July 7, 2019,  Klobuchar appeared on Meet the Press to discuss her candidacy from from New Hampshire:

On September 8, 2019, Todd interviewed Klobuchar in-studio on Meet the Press:

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Fox News viewers outperform CNN, MSNBC fans on knowledge of news topics

Climate change, gun violence and Uncle Sam’s growing debt — they’re among the biggest topics in politics, yet Americans don’t have a good grasp on what the actual numbers say.

Those who favor CNN or MSNBC know even less than those who prefer Fox News or who don’t watch cable television at all, according to polling by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank.

Relatively few people could place the federal government’s total debt at $20 trillion to $30 trillion, but Fox viewers were about twice as likely as CNN viewers to do so, Heartland found in the polling, which Rasmussen Reports conducted.

On taxes, 36% of Fox viewers knew the top marginal tax rate was 30% to 40%. Just 23% of CNN watchers and 22% of MSNBCviewers knew that.

Most striking was climate change. More than half of CNN viewers and 58% of MSNBCviewers said at the rate the globe is warming, humanity is on pace for extinction within 100 years.

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Trump bashes 35 Republicans who voted for Jan. 6 commission

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed the nearly three dozen House GOP lawmakers who voted in favor of establishing a commission to further investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The measure, which passed 252-175 on Wednesday with substantial GOP support, calls for a 10-member panel appointed evenly by Republicans and Democrats, which would also share the power to issue subpoenas in order to examine the causes and responses to the incident that left several dead or injured. A total of 35 Republicans voted in favor of the proposal, despite opposition from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. 

“See, 35 wayward Republicans—they just can’t help themselves. We have much better policy and are much better for the Country, but the Democrats stick together, the Republicans don’t,” Trump said in his latest tweemail statement.

The former president also took the time to slam Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, all of whom have been outspoken Trump critics in the aftermath of the Capitol unrest.

“[Democrats] don’t have the Romney’s, Little Ben Sasse’s, and Cheney’s of the world. Unfortunately, we do,” he added. “Sometimes there are consequences to being ineffective and weak. The voters understand!” 

A day before, Trump referred to the commission as a “trap.”

“Republicans in the House and Senate should not approve the Democrat trap of the January 6 Commission,” he said. 

McConnell has referred to the proposal, which was spearheaded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as “slanted and unbalanced,” while McCarthy railed against the bill because it did not address prolonged unrest caused by Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

“What about all the riots that have let up throughout the summer? The unrest from [Black Lives Matter], antifa, and others?” McCarthy said Tuesday on Fox News. “This is driven solely by politics and Nancy Pelosi, but we should not be a part of that.”

On Thursday, the House voted 213-212 to pass a $1.9 billion bill that would make the National Guard presence at the Capitol permanent. The legislation would also bolster the funding of the U.S. Capitol Police, provide millions in funding for the construction of fencing, and set aside additional funds to harden windows and doorways that lead to the rotunda.

All House Republicans voted against the measure, with a few Democrats joining them as they cited policing concerns.

More than 400 suspected Capitol riot participants have been arrested and charged in connection to the unrest earlier in the year.

Brian Houston Says He Is ‘Not Shrinking Back’ From Helping Hillsong Improve

On Wednesday, the founder of Hillsong Church opened up about criticisms and scandals recently linked to his organization. Brian Houston, in an exclusive interview with NBC’s “Today” show, answered questions about Hillsong’s disgraced former pastor Carl Lentz as well as the church’s celebrity culture and stance on homosexuality.

Though Houston acknowledged experiencing “a lot of disappointment” and losing sleep during this “difficult” season, he said, “I genuinely believe in my heart Hillsong is a good church.” He adds that he’s “100% committed” to ridding Hillsong’s culture of any type of mistreatment.

Carl Lentz Is a ‘Unique Character,’ Says Hillsong’s Brian Houston

When asked about the November firing of Carl Lentz, the so-called celebrity pastor who’d led Hillsong’s New York City branch, Houston cited “leadership issues that I believe included lying” as well as “narcissistic behavior.” After being fired, Lentz admitted he’d been unfaithful to his wife, Laura.

Houston says he had “concerns and many conversations over the years” with Lentz, but “Carl was Carl. He’s a unique character.” Houston denies suggestions that he and Lentz are similar but indicates that would be a “compliment,” because the former Hillsong pastor is “incredibly gifted.” He adds, “There’s a lot of things I miss about Carl.”

Saying “there’s a lot of things I should’ve known earlier,” Houston maintains that he’s “ultimately responsible” for his church’s leaders and is working to ensure “better accountability” in the future. Although not all the recent negative reports about Hillsong are true, Houston says, he’s “not shrinking back” from areas “where we need to get far better, much better.”

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COVID Vaccines May Not Work on Millions Who Have Underlying Conditions, Yet CDC Continues to Recommend They Get the Shot

Research shows people with underlying health disorders or on immunosuppressive medications mount few antibodies to COVID vaccines, leading some to question if they should get the vaccine and, if so, what are the potential risks?

Emerging research shows that 15% to 80% of people with certain medical conditions aren’t generating many antibodies, if any, after receiving a COVID vaccine.

According to NBC News, people taking medications that suppress their immune system, those on medication for inflammatory disorders and those with blood cancers showed a significantly weaker antibody response to the vaccine.

An organ transplant study published in JAMA found 46% of 658 transplant patients did not mount an antibody response after two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. Researchers think the lack of reaction is probably a result of taking a class of immunosuppressive drugs, called antimetabolites.

“Although this study demonstrates an improvement in … antibody responses in transplant recipients after dose two … these data suggest that a substantial proportion of transplant recipients likely remain at risk for COVID-19 after two doses of mRNA vaccine,” researchers from Johns Hopkins wrote.

“I am quite disappointed that a significant amount of transplant patients did not get a reasonable response from both doses of the vaccine,” said Dr. Dorry Segev, author of the study, associate vice chair for research and professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University.

“The overwhelming majority of transplant patients, even after a second dose of the vaccine, appear to have suboptimal protection — if any protection — from the vaccine, which is frightening, disappointing and a bit surprising,” Segev said.

One of Segev’s trial participants, Laura Burns, received a double lung transplant in 2016, and was taking immunosuppressive medications to prevent her body from rejecting the new lungs. Despite two doses of Moderna’s vaccine, her body did not mount any detectable antibodies to the virus.

However, Segev said he was hopeful because the number of participants who developed antibodies after two doses was higher than the number of people who developed antibodies after just one dose. He and other researchers said scientists are prepared with potential solutions, including a third booster or high-dose shots — though no clinical trials have been conducted yet.

Mounzer Agha, a hematologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, led a study on blood cancers and COVID vaccines posted online before peer review. Agha said he was crushed when he saw the low antibody results for nearly half of the 67 patients his group tracked.

Patients on treatments that impact B-cell function appeared to have the weakest results, and those with chronic lymphocytic leukemia had a very weak response even if they were not undergoing treatment.

“When I found patients who had never received therapy still did not respond to the vaccine, that was very disheartening,” Agha said.

Current guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate those with compromised immune systems should be vaccinated for COVID, though “no data are available to establish COVID vaccine safety and efficacy in these groups.”

The agency’s website also states recipients should “be aware of the potential for reduced immune responses to the vaccine.”

People with compromised immune systems or those who take immunosuppressants for a medical condition were largely excluded from vaccine clinical trials.

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Target forecasts more sales growth after bumper quarter

Target Corp (TGT.N) on Wednesday posted quarterly sales that surged about 23%, raising hopes of booming demand through the year as consumers flock to stores and shop for more than just essentials.

Shares rose 4% after the retailer also forecast growth in comparable sales for the last two quarters of the year, countering Wall Street’s fears of a sales drop, as it keeps pace with surging sales recorded during the pandemic’s peak.

With the reopening of the economy due to vaccinations, Target, like Walmart (WMT.N) and Macy’s (M.N), said shoppers are spending more on apparel and beauty products as they prepare to socialize and travel.

“With vaccinations rolling out across the country and consumers increasingly comfortable venturing out, we’ve seen an enthusiastic return to in-store shopping,” CEO Brian Cornell told analysts.

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