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“University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender NCAA champion in Division I history after winning the women's 500-yard freestyle in Atlanta… Thomas competed on Pennsylvania's men's team for three years before transitioning and moving to the women's team.” Reuters
The right argues that it is unfair to allow biological males to compete in women’s leagues.
“When he made the switch, Thomas went from ranking #462 as a male to #1 as a female… Thomas’s times speak for themselves. It is obvious he has a massive advantage over the women competing against him, and no one really believes otherwise…
“That’s why fans watching the 500-yard freestyle race on Thursday chose not to clap until the second- and third-place swimmers, the actual women, touched the wall. It's why a Virginia Tech swimmer broke down into tears after realizing she wouldn’t place in the finals because of Thomas. It's why a top USA Swimming official resigned from her position when the NCAA refused to stand up for the women trying to compete. It's why more than 300 Olympians and Olympic coaches signed a petition demanding lawmakers protect women’s sports from the unfairness transgender participation guarantees.”
Kaylee McGhee White, Washington Examiner
“The story here isn’t about athletes’ identities. The story — or rather, the scandal — is about biological sex. Nobody objects, for instance, to the participation of Yale swimmer Iszac Henig in the women’s championships. Henig identifies as transgender but – crucially — is biologically female. Henig finished fifth in tonight’s NCAA 100-yard freestyle, with a time of 47.32 seconds…
“The same people who would boo Thomas can happily cheer for Henig. How can that be, if their motivation is ‘transphobia’? That Henig has been content to swim alongside other biological females also exposes the nonsense argument that it would somehow be a denial of ‘human rights’ to expect Thomas to swim alongside biological males. If Henig can compete in the women’s championships without any issues, why can’t Thomas swim with the men?”
Madeleine Kearns, National Review
“A man’s cumulative exposure to higher testosterone levels throughout his life and the effects of puberty give him irreversible — or only partially reversible — advantages in sport, such as larger and stronger bones, broader shoulders, bigger feet and an ability to put on and retain muscle…
“Testing testosterone levels is simply not enough to account for biological differences. The reality is that the only way to ensure fair competition is for biological men and women to compete in separate categories. Why should Thomas’s perceived right to compete in a category that doesn’t match his biological sex outweigh the right for women to have fairness in sports?”
Amber Athey, Spectator World
A female college athlete writes, “Two years ago, in two races at the Big Sky Indoor Track and Field Championships, I ran against the same biological male athlete, who came in 15th place in the 3,000 meters with a time 18 seconds better than mine (nudging me out of the top 25). In the mile, this athlete took first, beating me by 22 seconds and keeping me out of the top 15. If you watch the video of that mile run, you’ll see that the biological male athlete came in a full four-and-a-half seconds ahead of the nearest competition—and didn’t even seem to be breathing hard…
“Biological male athletes have that much of a physical advantage over women, and there’s plenty of science to prove it. Whatever the biological male athlete’s mental and emotional self-image, physically he’s a guy—a guy my teammates and I are running against, and losing to, in women’s athletics. This is hard because, not only are women being pushed out of their own sport, but past generations of women worked so hard to get us where we are…
“My teammates and I are watching our records, our scholarships and our competitive opportunities slip away…wondering if anyone in authority is going to have the courage to step up and save women’s sports.”
Haley Tanne, Fox News
The left generally argues that transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in the league that matches their gender identities.
The left generally argues that transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in the league that matches their gender identities.
“Misgendering Thomas and treating her success as a sign of the apocalypse has become a national obsession… Even though Thomas competed according to NCAA guidelines for trans athletes, even though Thomas’s victory in the 500 freestyle did not translate to the other races in which she competed, even though she has the support of her team, she was going to somehow end women’s sports as we know them. There is zero evidence that trans women are anything more than barely visible in the world of women’s sports. Yet the GOP has used Thomas’s success as an occasion for moral panic…
“There have been some profiles in courage… The Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, in vetoing a trans sports ban, exposed what a sham this all is and what the true stakes happen to be. He pointed out that of 75,000 kids playing high school sports in Utah, four are transgender and only one (1!) a trans girl. He said, ‘Four kids and only one of them playing girls’ sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few.’… We must fight for a different framework.”
Dave Zirin, The Nation
“Thomas’s Ivy League records this season at Penn coupled with her 6-foot-1 frame initially seem like an overwhelmingly unfair advantage — until you remember that [former Olympian] Missy Franklin is 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds… Then there is the baffling truth that height differences within genders are much greater than between them. Transgender people have been allowed to compete in the Olympics since 2004 and have yet to [win a] medal, much less blot out women…
“What is the real aim and value of NCAA competition? Is it not to grow people? Surely, it’s about more than just vaulting a small subset of young talents on to a podium for the sake of name-image-and-likeness deals and spots in the Olympics… ‘Sport is always taking into account how to group athletes in order to have meaningful, interesting competitions,’ bioethicist Thomas Murray says…
“For the moment we can only continue to calibrate judgments around the important question: Does our current collegiate model, with its inclusion of Thomas and other trans athletes, call forth competition that is interesting, meaningful and valuable? The answer is yes.”
Sally Jenkins, Washington Post
Some note, “The LGBTQ rights movement has been the signature political success story of my lifetime. When I was a kid, overt homophobia was routinely expressed even in a liberal, relatively gay-friendly place like New York City, and the idea that it would be intensely embarrassing and shameful to be mistaken for gay was a staple of 1990s sitcoms…
“[Then] We had a roughly 10-year period of political routs (starting with the repeal of ‘don’t ask don’t tell,’ continuing to the Obergefell decision, through to Bostock) in which the left was constantly on the march. And a new PRRI poll confirms that both marriage equality and LGBTQ non-discrimination law are not only popular but increasingly so…
“At the same time, I think progressives have grown somewhat overconfident about the broad popularity of some of these issues… The Transgender Law Center itself says that in their message testing that ‘our opposition wins the debate on trans youth in sports against any and all arguments we have tried for our side.’ It is not smart for elected officials to take up a political cause whose own advocates say it’s currently a losing position. And I think it’s important not to die on that hill because there are other important political fights that are winnable.”
Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring
