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Dick Durbin refused to ask female athletes a single question, then walked out of the hearing.

Photo: Jeff McEvoy, U.S. Senate / Public domain (source)

Durbin Refuses to Ask a Single Question at Women’s Sports Hearing, Then Walks Out

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 24, 2026 · 4 min read
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Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans held a hearing on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, titled “Standing Up for Women in Sports: Ensuring Opportunity, Fairness and Safety for Female Athletes,” and the committee’s top Democrat announced at the start that he would not take part in it. Ranking Member Dick Durbin of Illinois refused to ask a single question, called no witnesses, and left soon after his opening statement.

He was one of only two Democrats who showed up at all. According to OutKick, Durbin and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota were the only Democrats in the room, both left within the first hour, and Klobuchar never spoke. The committee’s other eight Democrats did not attend.

“I refuse to treat this hearing like a responsible exercise”

Durbin did not hide what he was doing. He closed his opening statement, as published by his office that day, with this: “For these reasons, I refuse to treat this hearing like a responsible exercise of this Committee. I will not ask questions, and the minority did not call any witnesses.”

His opening statement spent most of its time on other subjects. He said that if Americans were asked for their priorities, “the issue of this hearing would not be in the top 10, maybe not the top 20.” He talked about the cost of living, utility bills and grocery bills. He said people concerned about protecting children would start by asking “how are we going to get these damn cellphones out of their hands.” He asked why the CEOs of the big social media platforms hadn’t been called back. He pushed for a hearing on wedding gifts given to Donald Trump Jr. by a Russian oligarch.

When he did address women’s sports, it was to dismiss the premise. OutKick reported that Durbin called efforts to protect female categories a “vendetta against a small number of people in the trans community.” In his released remarks, he read from an open letter by more than 400 athletes to the NCAA and warned against “categorically treating every trans athlete, no matter their age or level of competition, as a threat to women’s sports.” According to OutKick, he also argued that enforcing sex-based categories could subject girls to invasive inspections.

The women who did show up

The witnesses Durbin declined to question were Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, whose daughter swam against Lia Thomas; Carly Smolak, a former professional soccer and Australian rules football player; and William Bock III, a former general counsel of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Jones was blunt about the empty seats. “It felt dismissive of women, of our concerns,” she told OutKick. She called Durbin’s remarks “incensing” and his argument “whataboutism in the most obvious form,” comparing it to saying, “I cannot care about brain cancer until you solve stomach cancer.” On the claim about inspections, she was flat: “There is no need for any kind of invasive inspections,” noting that sex can be verified with a cheek swab.

Smolak described discovering that a registered sex offender had joined an adult women’s Australian rules football team she remained connected to. Her conclusion, as she told OutKick: “the obvious policy is that women’s sports are for biological females, are for women.”

At a press conference after the hearing, high school and college athletes told their own stories. Briley Lechner, a 17-year-old volleyball and soccer player from New York, said her team learned after a match that a male had played against them and used their locker room: “it feels as if our protection was just stripped away from us.” Former West Virginia State soccer player Lainey Armistead put it more simply: “Women’s sports is not men’s for the taking.”

The numbers in the background

The hearing came as Concerned Women for America put new numbers on the problem. According to the group, as reported by The Daily Wire on September 24, female athletes have been pushed out of championship spots by males 2,293 times since the mid-1980s, across more than 14,000 female sporting events, with more than $500,000 in prize money going to male competitors. The figures are the group’s own count, compiled from amateur and professional events, and The Daily Wire’s piece was an opinion column built on them.

However the medals are counted, the public is not divided on the principle. OutKick reported that polling by The New York Times, Quinnipiac and the Pew Research Center shows more than 70 percent of Americans believe biological males should not compete in women’s sports. The Supreme Court earlier this year upheld West Virginia’s law limiting girls’ and women’s sports to biological females, OutKick noted.

Why the walkout matters

Durbin is right that Americans care about the cost of groceries. They can care about more than one thing. The Senate Judiciary Committee can hold more than one hearing in a session, and Durbin’s own statement made the case for several. When the subject is whether girls get a fair race and a safe locker room, the party that claims to speak for women decided the most it could offer was an opening statement and the door.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said he missed the hearing because of a classified briefing on the Iran war, according to OutKick. Durbin’s office pointed to his opening statement as its explanation. The other seats stayed empty.

The women at that table came to be heard, and the senior Democrat on the committee made sure to leave before he had to listen.

Sources

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