For decades, women have been encouraged to shatter glass ceilings, make history, win world records, and compete on equal footing in arenas once closed off to them. Sports became one of the clearest symbols of that progress after the implementation of Title IX. Female athletes were told that if they worked hard enough, sacrificed enough, and stayed disciplined, opportunity would follow. That promise became a guiding force for so many of us.
But for many female athletes today, including myself, that glass ceiling is being shattered in a very different way. Not by women rising to meet the challenge, but by women standing up to rules that quietly erase them from fair competition altogether.
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