Briley Lechner is 17. She plays varsity volleyball and soccer at Monroe High School in New York, and she told a Capitol Hill press conference she isn’t done talking. “I’m not going to sit down until there is a change,” she said.
Lechner was one of several female athletes who came to Washington on Wednesday to tell lawmakers how policies letting biological males compete in women’s sports have affected their safety, privacy and opportunities. They also warned that the issue could follow candidates into the midterm elections.
A hearing with one side at the table
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “Standing Up for Women in Sports: Ensuring Opportunity, Fairness and Safety for Female Athletes.” It heard three witnesses: Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS); Carly Smolak, a former professional soccer and Australian rules football player; and William Bock III, an attorney and former general counsel of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Democrats did not invite a witness. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the ranking member, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota were the only Democrats to attend, and both were gone within the first hour. Durbin did not question the witnesses.
His opening remarks argued that the hearing ignored other problems facing children and female athletes, among them affordability, artificial intelligence, children’s cellphone use and falling trust in government. He also worried that enforcing sex-based categories could mean invasive inspections of female athletes.
Jones, whose daughter competed against swimmer Lia Thomas, told OutKick the remarks were “incensing.” She compared them to saying “I cannot care about brain cancer until you solve stomach cancer.” On the inspection concern, she said eligibility could be settled with a cheek swab testing for the SRY gene. “There is no need for any kind of invasive inspections,” she said. Asked whether the issue would matter in November, she called protecting female sports “non-negotiable.”
Smolak testified about learning that a registered sex offender had joined an adult women’s Australian rules football team she stayed close to after retiring. He was quietly removed once she raised it, she said, but she alleged teammates were never told and that the sport’s national governing body did not do enough to prevent a repeat. She called the reaction she met afterward “incredibly disheartening.” Some people, she said, cared more about using his preferred pronouns than about stopping it happening again. As for the empty Democratic seats, she said: “I think they either know they have a losing issue or cannot make their argument based on the merits of their position.”
The press conference
Lechner said she and her teammates found out only after a volleyball match that a biological male had played against them and used their locker room. “It feels as if our protection was just stripped away from us and they don’t care,” she said.
Lainey Armistead, a former West Virginia State University soccer player, spoke about her part in the litigation over West Virginia’s law limiting girls’ and women’s sports to biological females. The Supreme Court upheld that law earlier this year. “There are still girls in 23 other states, girls in New York, girls in California, who do not have the same opportunities that I did,” she said.
NCAA softball player Kendall Kotzmacher said her high school team lost a state semifinal in her senior year to a team with a transgender pitcher. Walking onto the field that day, she said, was “a feeling that you can’t explain to another person.” She had a message for Democrats who called the issue a non-issue: they are the reason she will keep speaking out.
Angie Griffin, a U.S. Masters swimmer, said she lost a national title to a transgender competitor at the 2025 U.S. Masters Swimming Spring National Championship. After she and other swimmers protested the result, a grievance alleging unsportsmanlike conduct was filed against her, and she faced a possible lifetime ban before she was cleared. “The process itself was the punishment,” Griffin said.
Marshi Smith, a former NCAA champion swimmer and fellow ICONS co-founder, said it was distressing to see Democratic senators “so dismissive of young women who are suffering across the country today.”
OutKick asked all 10 Democratic committee members about their absences. Only Durbin’s office answered, pointing to his opening statement. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut later said he missed the hearing for a classified briefing on the Iran war, and declined to discuss his position on women’s sports.
