By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
In 1972 when Congress passed Title IX only one in 27 women and girls participated in sports; today, nearly fifty years later, that number is closer to two in six. Not only did the law result in more athletic opportunities for women and girls, it also benefited them by opening more avenues for scholarships and elite competition. It was hailed as a monumental civil rights advancement for all women, athlete or not. At the time sex was considered binary: You were either male or female.
Much has changed today. The intellectual elites on the left now claim that sex is non-binary, and is subject to an individual’s assessment of self; it is fluid. In short, you are what you claim to be, and you may change your status at will. And, of late, the judiciary and state laws are, inexplicably, recognizing this “fact.” In 2014 the Maine Supreme Court ruled that a “trans-girl” had the right to use her high school’s women’s restroom. In 2016 the Obama Justice and Education Departments jumped onto the bandwagon warning schools that disallowing trans-boys in the men’s room — or vice-versa — could be considered sex discrimination.
In 2014 a California law went into effect that allowed trans-individuals to participate in sex-segregated school programs, including athletics, consistent with their perceived gender identity. And in 2015 the International Olympic Committee determined that men do not have an unfair advantage competing against women as long as their testosterone levels are consistent with those of female athletes. Since then there has been numerous reports of biological men participating in and winning in women’s sports.
Now we are seeing the premier electoral values of the left — women’s rights and gender equality — meeting on the sports field ready to do battle with one another, all to the detriment of one or both sides.
In one corner we have the real women, those that were born that way, eagerly competing in women’s and girls’ sports and enjoying the benefit of Title IX. In the other corner are the faux or trans-women, who were actually born as men, competing with their bigger and stronger bodies. On the field of play, the faux side is winning and not surprisingly the real side is crying foul.
But while the lefties in the stands watched conflicted, they seemed to at least be rooting, however silently, for the faux team. But there has been some movement on the issue. Our friends Down Under, separated from us by a common language, have recently established new rules, “Guidelines for the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport.” It was compiled by the Australian Human Rights Commission in conjunction with Sport Australia and published in May.
In it, while it looks favorably on allowing trans-women to play on women’s teams, it does carve out an exception for “discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender identity only in any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina, or physique of competitors is relevant.” But as one hand giveth, the other taketh away. It states further: “If a sporting organization decides to rely on the ‘competitive sporting activity’ exemption…it will need to satisfy itself that strength, stamina, or physique are relevant and how the organization assesses this.”
In other words, the exemption is purely subjective, subject to different interpretations that could render it nonconsequential, especially if read in the context of the entire document.
On the other hand, just as a faux boy won the Maine case, a real girl is challenging a Connecticut rule that allows trans athletes to participate in girls’ track and field.
Selina Soule, with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, is asking the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights to investigate whether the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference is discriminating against her by allowing biological males who claim female identity to complete in girls’ events. In Selina’s case, two trans-girls outperformed her in a track event that caused her to finish two positions away from advancing to regional competition.
Selina is not unique. Instances of biological males competing and beating women are being reported more and more often — perhaps just as often the press doesn’t report or covers up the phenomenon. Critics of trans participation in sports, including tennis champion Martina Navratilova, are starting to sound off, claiming that girls and women are being shortchanged by the adoption of policies like those of the Connecticut Athletic Conference.
Rachel McKinnon, a philosophy professor at the College of Charleston, was born a man but won the woman’s world championship bicycling race as a trans-woman. When a real woman competitor, Jennifer Wagner, complained about losing to a biological male, McKinnon posted on a Twitter account that “we have no idea why men, on average, outperform women….I think a lot of the current gap is sociological, not biological.”
Three years ago a trans-girl, Nattaphon Wangyot, won top honors in Alaska’s high school championships. Another, Gabrielle Ludwig, 6-6 and 220 pounds, played women’s basketball at Mission College in Santa Clara, Calif. At the time the former Robert Ludwig was fifty, showing the physical superiority of the male body.
Cong. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has called for the investigation of USA Powerlifting for banning trans-women from competing against real women. In doing so she called the belief that men have a competitive advantage a myth.
Myth or not the truth is that men are larger, stronger, have greater lung capacity, are faster, have more upper-body strength, and have faster reaction times than women. According to the Journal of Applied Physiology, men also have more skeletal muscle mass than women. Perhaps that is why you don’t see a lot of girls masquerading as boys to play on boys’ teams; and when they want to play it is as a girl — not a trans anything — to break the sex barrier, similar to girls who want to be the boys’ football kicker.
So why the fuss? Like so much else this is infused into politics where there are no true facts, only opinions, as leftists like Cong. Omar are prone to claim; thus each of us is entitled to our own version of fact.
So what about young Selina? Well, we know she failed to qualify for the New England regionals because two faux girls bumped her out of the opportunity to participate in front of college coaches where scholarships would be in play. We also know that her track team lost, due to faux girls on the other team.
In her request for an investigation, her attorneys note that one male sophomore athlete failed to advance in the boys’ indoor track events in the winter of 2018. In the spring that same boy began competing as a trans-girl, in the spring outdoor girls’ events where he deprived a real girl of the opportunity to advance in competition. He, or she, depending on your view, now holds more than ten athletic records in Connecticut, records that once belonged to girls.
Selina’s attorney, Christiana Holcomb, perhaps put it best: “Allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports reverses nearly 50 years of advances under [Title IX]….But girls competing against boys know the outcome before the race even starts: They can’t win. Boys will always have physical advantages over girls; that’s the reason we have women’s sports.”
Of course, we know that. But since when have we had the common sense to rely on self-evident facts?
(Mike can be reached at: DeaconMike@q.com.)
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