U.S. Olympic Rower Patricia Spratlen Etem Says Biden Administration’s Proposed Title IX Changes “Awful Threat”

Patricia Spratlen Etem is a former member U.S. Olympic Rowing Team Growing up, she wasn’t an athlete between 1980 and 1984. Her journey began when she entered the University of California at Berkeley in the mid-1970s after Title IX was implemented.  

Spratlen Em, 66, spoke to Fox News Digital about her ongoing work in women’s sport, particularly the ongoing debate over the participation of Transgender athletes in women’s sports.

Spratlen Etem was one of two African American women ever to make the U.S. women’s Olympic rowing squad. But in her first chance at gold the United States announced that it was boycotting 1980. Moscow Summer Games Due to the Soviet invasion Afghanistan. 

Patricia Spratlen Etem was a former member the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team. Photographed in 1980. ( )

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Spratlen Em, now a member on the Independent Council on Women’s Sports Rowing Advisory Committee, compared that moment of being stripped from her to “being stripped naked”. “gold medal opportunity” The “same denial” She said that transgender athletes are a major problem for young women and girls today. 

“I worked tremendously hard, as did athletes all around the world, and [it was] completely out of our control. There was a boycott mandated by our government. We were not government employees. We were not in the military. And yet we were denied our opportunity. And for me, that was my gold medal opportunity. It truly was.”

She continued: “So I think of these women, and it’s the same denial. You don’t have control. It’s being levied on you and out of your control. So this is happening to young girls and it’s just heartbreaking. It’s really heartbreaking.” 

Spratlen’s comments follow Becky Sauerbrunn’s. Becky Sauerbrunn is a U.S. women’s football star who has won two. FIFA World Cups He won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics and wrote an op-ed attacking Missouri lawmakers earlier this month over a bill that would ban transgender girls playing sports with biological women.

Becky Sauerbrunn (#4) of the United States advances the ball in preparation for a game between Germany, USWNT and Red Bull Arena on Nov. 13, 2022, Harrison, New Jersey. (Howard Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

“I can assure you that playing with or against transgender women and girls is not a threat to women’s sports,” Sauerbrunn contributed to her article published in Springfield News-Leader in Missouri. 

However, Spratlen Etem disagreed.

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“It’s very much a threat. It’s an existential threat. And it’s a threat on many levels.” 

Spratlen Etem cited several examples, including safety in contact sports but claimed that Title IX is the greatest threat. 

She specifically referred to the proposed Title IX changes by the Biden administration that will alter the law’s language to include gender identity in its protections, as opposed to being sex-based. 

On February 9, 2023, President Biden spoke at the University of Tampa. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“That’s dangerous for women. That completely puts Title IX on its head. It undoes Title IX for women. It does that for recruitment, where now you have to say – they can practice affirmative action in recruiting to bring levels, now not based on sex, based on gender.”

The Biden administration proposed regulations to increase protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. 

Spratlen Emem argued that the new changes would have a long-lasting impact on biological females. This will not only affect athletics, but also education. 

“It is a definite, awful threat for women because then this impedes educational opportunity. And people who say, no, it really doesn’t. Yes, it really does,” She said that Title IX has made it easier for women to be on campus, and she added that this is a good thing. 

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“The very fact is that Title IX is a complete and important driver to higher education for women, when that gets changed to gender – It’s just inarguable to say it’s not a threat.”

“It’s prejudicial to women to have to compete against biological men,” She went on. “So in the implementation for U.S. colleges and universities, that’s going to be Title IX. And if Title IX language says everything will be superseded to gender, then women essentially don’t count. That’s really what they’re saying. And that is the opposite – the antithesis of what Title IX’s objective originally was.”

Lia Thomas (left) looks on as she finishes fifth in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship held at the McAuley Aquatic Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, on March 18, 2022, in Atlanta. (Mike Comer/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

The Biden administration will release another round of regulations in the spring that will specifically address Title IX’s application to transgender athletes participating in women’s sports – an idea furiously debated by current and former athletes on both sides.

Spratlen Emem, however, requires that you have a Spratlen ID. “discrimination component” of these changes is something she believes is something no one can deny – especially those who have benefited from Title IX.

“I don’t understand how women or men aren’t seeing the discrimination component of this and how it’s negatively affecting and will affect girls,” She spoke to Fox News Digital. “Women have paved the way for these young women. Completely. They themselves have benefited from the original Title IX. That’s been in their lifetime.” 

Spratlen Etem stated that the idea isn’t to exclude anyone from athletics but to encourage participation. “create a category so that it is competitively fair.”