US Olympic rower Patricia Spratlen Etem calls Biden administration's proposed Title IX changes ‘awful threat'

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Patricia Spratlen Etem, a former member of the U.S. Olympic Rowing team in 1980 and 1984, was not an athlete growing up. In fact, it was not until she attended the University of California, Berkeley in the mid-1970s, fresh off the implementation of Title IX, that her journey began.  

Spratlen Etem, 66, spoke to Fox News Digital recently about her continued work in women’s sports, specifically surrounding the ongoing debate regarding the involvement of transgender athletes in women’s sports.

Spratlen Etem is just one of two African American women to ever make the U.S women’s Olympic rowing team, but in her first chance at gold, the United States announced it was boycotting the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

Patricia Spratlen Etem, a former member of the U.S. Olympic Rowing team, pictured in 1980. ( )

28 GROUPS URGE BIDEN ADMIN TO SUPPORT WOMEN'S SPORTS, FIGHT 'UNLAWFUL' TITLE IX REG

Spratlen Etem, who now serves as a Rowing Advisory Committee member for the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, likened that moment of being stripped of her "gold medal opportunity" to the "same denial" that she says young girls and women face in sports today because of transgender athlete participation. 

"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