National Review Online
Friday, February 21, 2020
Transgender sports policies make a mockery of women’s
competition. Just look at the state of Connecticut.
At the 2018 state open for women’s track and field, two
young men identifying as transgender took first and second place in the 100m
race. Their participation not only deprived young women of their rightful claim
to victory, but also prevented others from even qualifying in the New England
Championships. Now three of these displaced female high-school athletes are,
along with their parents, seeking federal redress in a lawsuit against the
Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC).
Last June, the same athletes had filed a complaint to the
Education Department. But now that two of them are nearing graduation — and
transgender activists are strengthening their influence nationwide — they have
sought a speedier judicial intervention. Filed on behalf of Selina Soule, a
senior at Glastonbury High School, Chelsea Mitchell, a senior at Canton High
School, and Alanna Smith, a sophomore at Danbury High School, the suit argues,
correctly, that the CIAC policy is in violation of Title IX.
Enacted in 1972, Title IX was designed to ensure that “no
person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination
under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial
assistance.” For sports, this meant that women were to receive equal
opportunities to men. (Overeager implementation of the provision has,
regrettably, caused many universities to scuttle men’s sports teams.) Between
1972 and 2011, female participation in high-school athletics increased from
around 250,000 to 3.25 million students, with similar increases at the
collegiate level.
Transgender sports policies threaten women’s
participation in sports. The CIAC’s transgender policy allows an individual to
compete against the opposite sex so long as his proclaimed gender identity is
the same as how he presents at school. Since enacting it in 2017, the two
racers in question have deprived young women of 15 state championship titles
and more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher-level competitions. And
that’s just in Connecticut. There are 19 other states, and counting, with
similar policies.
On account of their androgynized bodies (e.g. larger
hearts, bigger lungs, and greater muscle mass) men are generally larger,
taller, faster, and stronger than women. And on account of changes from puberty
(e.g. increased body-fat levels, hip breadth, and joint orientation) women are
generally smaller, shorter, slower, and weaker than men. As the Connecticut
lawsuit outlines, these statements are “not stereotypes” or “social constructs”
but rather “inescapable biological facts of the human species.”
They are also obvious. For why else, other than an
in-built physiological advantage, would there be a 10–20 percent performance
gap in elite sports between the sexes? And why else would thousands of men and
boys, with relative ease, routinely beat the Olympian gold standards in women’s
sports? Consider Allyson Felix, who has as many World Championship gold medals
for sprinting as does Usain Bolt. In 2018 alone, nearly 300 high-school boys
beat her lifetime best for the 400 meters.
As Duke law professor and all-American track athlete
Doraine Lambelet Coleman explained to the House Judiciary Committee last year:
“If sport were not segregated, most school-aged females would be eliminated
from competition during the earliest rounds.” Coleman went on to explain that —
lest we think that the odd exception can’t hurt — “it only takes three
male-bodied athletes to preclude the best females from the medal stand, and
eight to exclude them from the track.”
The high-school girls in Connecticut are to be commended
for their courage and deserve to prevail in their lawsuit. But it is both
absurd and unjust that their resistance is necessary. Women’s sports should
remain women’s sports.
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