Bucha left the pool to attend her freshman year at Stanford, but that summer, she saw a newspaper ad for a 10-mile marathon in Lake Michigan with a $2,500 prize. The catch? She had to swim against both sexes. But Bucha took home second prize, behind a male competitor, while claiming a world record to boot. Then she joined a professional marathon swimming circuit. In 2014, she was inducted in the Swimming Hall of Fame for her achievements.
But the “fundamental unfairness” of those years impelled her dad to sue the State of Illinois and the Illinois High School Association in 1972, seeking equal rights. “The court found, ‘Yes, there should be high school girls’ teams,’” said Bucha. “The interesting part is the judge said, ‘But meanwhile, we will not allow girls to compete against boys, because it is fundamentally unfair to the girls,’ because the girls will probably be beaten by the boys because they are biologically superior.”
This, along with the efforts of other women athletes, was instrumental in establishing a foothold for separate and equal athletic opportunities for both sexes.
Fifty years on, it’s fitting Bucha should stand up again; we’re turning the clock back toward marginalizing women, she thinks.
“Women are being returned to t“We are dealing with a limited number of individuals who identify as transgender, not an entire sex, like women versus men,” she added. “It’s a very small category of individuals that are displacing women, and women only. You don’t see transgender men displacing men in swimming competitions, for example, you don’t see that fundamental unfairness that you see when you have a biological man—meaning a transgender woman—displace a woman swimmer.”he sidelines of sports,” she said. “Fifty years later, that same group that represented me to get rights for women [the ACLU] is now representing the transgender groups, or individuals, to harm one set of individuals only, and that one set of individuals is women again.
Bucha expressed sympathy for transgender individuals, but feels further efforts are needed to achieve fairness for all.
Equal respect ought to be the aim. “Our struggle was, ‘We want to have the same opportunities as men,’” she said. “So, create those women’s swim teams, create those boys swim teams, and … create those teams for transgender swim teams. Allow those transgender athletes to compete against other transgender athletes.
“Or create open competitions, so that all who choose to will engage, as I did back in professional swimming. I knew that I was jumping into a lake to swim against 30 other men. I chose to do that. That wasn’t fundamentally unfair to me, because I chose to be in that competition. We can do the same thing now.”
It only makes sense to have female athletes, male athletes and transgender athletes compete in their own gender group. That is fair.