I oppose transgender women playing in women’s sports. There, I have said it. Vilify me, hate me, cancel me, but that is my belief. You may disagree, but I would appreciate you hearing me out.
Let me be perfectly clear, I am in total support of transgender women playing sports, just not allowing them to compete in the women’s category. It isn’t like we have never created new categories for national and international sports competition!
1896: A Frenchman, Pierre de Coubertin, assembled the first International Olympic Committee and organized the first modern Olympic Games in Athens.
1960: The Paralympics were developed to provide world class athletic competition for people with physical disabilities. The first Paralympics were held in Rome, six days after the closing ceremony of the 1960 Olympic Games.
1968: Special Olympics were developed to put a spotlight on the ability, not the disability of athletes with intellectual disabilities. The first Special Olympics competition was held at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
2014: The Invictus Games were developed for wounded, injured and ill military service personnel and war veterans from across the world. The first Invictus Game was held in London at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
The Paralympics, Special Olympics and the Invictus Games are three examples where we as a society decided to not disenfranchise one group of athletes at the expense of another group. Why must the hard work and accomplishments of girls and women be diminished and challenged for the promotion of another group?
What does Title IX have to do with sports, you ask? Everything.
Title IX Of The Education Amendments Of 1972
Representative Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii introduced what we now know as Title IX. She was the primary author and force behind Title IX weaving its way through all three branches of government until it was signed into law on June 23, 1972 by President Richard M. Nixon. Specifically, Title IX states:
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 14th Amendment and the Evolution of Title IX
Betsy Stevenson from The Wharton School wrote an important think piece about the impact of this legislation, Title IX and the Evolution of High School Sports. Stevenson identified that in 1972 in the United States there were millions of high school boys playing high school sports compared to less than 300,000 girls.
Through Title IX enforcement, between 1972 and 1992, the number of girls playing high school sports went from 1 in 27 to an impressive 1 in 3.
My Experience
I distinctly remember the angst and acrimony when Title IX was being implemented.
In high school I played field hockey and gymnastics, two of the few sports available to me at the time as a girl. Many more options were available for boys.
While Title IX was signed into law in 1972, regulations on how to implement it were not put into place until 1975. Full compliance was not expected until 1978. Too late to benefit my participation in high school sports!
College Sports
With only a finite amount of money devoted to college sports, there were very angry discussions about how Title IX would impact intercollegiate sports for men. Specifically at the local public university there was great concern about how many football scholarships for males would need to be eliminated to provided sports scholarships for female athletes. Prior to Title IX’s implementation, athletic scholarships for females were virtually nonexistent.
It has been 50 years, and a lot of people may not remember the controversy and the anger there was with the implementation of Title IX. It was not an easy time to be a female athlete in the 1970s and 1980s.
Come to think of it, it is not an easy time to be a female athlete now, either.
One of the changes making sports even more difficult for women is a recent executive order.
Executive Order 13988
A 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that protected gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals from discrimination in the workplace has been extended by the Biden administration (executive order 13988) to include the rights of transgender students in sports.
To read the whole executive order, please go to:
Whitehouse.gov: Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation
This executive order hurts more than helps. It says nothing to clarify who can play on female teams. Can someone simply identify as female? Is there a specific hormone level to be attained for a specific length of time? Is there a requirement of being post-surgery? It seems to contradict what other government agencies are promoting in terms of the physiological differences between men and women.
Physiology
Prior to 1994, medical research was primarily focused on the effect of illness, medications and other substances exclusively on men. Females had been entirely excluded from early studies. Of course, this has been changing over the years, as researchers have become more acutely aware that the physiology of men and women is different. For example, symptoms of a heart attack are different for men and women. GoRedforWomen.org: Symptoms of a Heart Attack in Women and Men
While some have indicated the definition of a woman can only be made by a biologist, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-woman-definition.html officials at the National Institute of Health and the Department of Transportation are pretty clear they know what the differences are.
National Institutes of Health
In 1994 the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued guidelines for the study and evaluation of gender differences in clinical trials to ensure research safety and efficacy of medications. One of their findings had to do with the effects of medications on men and women. As the result of this change in research guidelines, by 2005 eight out of ten prescription drugs were withdrawn from the US market because of side effects on women!! NIH – National Library of Medicine: Gender Bias in Research: How Does it Affect Evidence Based Medicine?
Department of Transportation
On April 20, 2023, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke before the House Appropriation Subcommittee asking for $20 million in his department’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget to develop female crash test dummies. This request comes after engineers in Sweden designed the world’s first female dummy in 2022. https://nypost.com/2023/04/20/buttigieg-wants-to-spend-20-million-on-female-crash-dummies/
This testing is not without merit. A recent study by Verity Now indicates that motor vehicle accident death rates for women can range from 9% to 28% higher than men, and that women are more than 73% more likely to be injured in a motor vehicle crash than are men. https://www.veritynow.org/ Why? Because not surprisingly, muscle mass, bone length, bone density and heights are different for males and females.
Even Consumer Reports has joined the bandwagon in advocating for anatomically sized and shaped crash-test dummies! Consumer Reports – No Brainer: Use Female Crash-Test Dummies
Difficult Definitions
What makes discussions around transgender females in female sports more difficult and emotionally charged are people who can’t define or agree upon when transitioning has occurred. Two examples:
Glenique Frank
Recently, a British transgender marathon runner, Glenique Frank, participated in the London Marathon in the female category. However, 6 months previously Frank competed in the Tokyo and New York marathons in the male category. Frank reports being required to do so because the gender on Frank’s passport is listed as male and “I haven’t had surgery”. DailyMail.co.uk: Transgender Athlete Ran Female Category And London Marathon Defends Taking Part.
Lia Thomas
Lia Thomas was a three-year member of the men’s swim team squad at Penn State University. During the COVID-19 pandemic Thomas joined the women’s team for the 2021-22 swim season. Thomas went from a national men’s ranking in the mid-500s to #1 at the NCAA Championship in the 200-meter women’s freestyle. Swimming World Magazine: NCAA Title For Lia Thomas Was Joke With Biological Women As Punchline, And Hardly a Laughing Matter
Cooler Heads
I certainly don’t have all the answers about this topic, but there are people who have some discussion points worth listening to:
Nancy Hogshead-Maker
As the head of Champion Women, Olympic champion Nancy Hogshead-Makar has spent years addressing equality in women’s swimming. She states: “Allowing transgender women to change the meaning of the women’s category makes as much sense as allowing 180-pound athletes into the 120-pound weight category. Or allowing adults to compete against children. Sport has been set up as binary with males and females, and sports need to adapt by adding new events and classifications, rather than throwing out the meaning of the ‘girls’ and ‘women’s’ categories. Rather than trying to squeeze transgender athletes into one-of-two categories, male or female, sports needs to adapt.”
Swimming World Magazine: NCAA Title For Lia Thomas Was Joke With Biological Women As Punchline, And Hardly a Laughing Matter
Union Cycliste Internationale
It seems like the only governing body for sports that has even tried to be fair on this subject is the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). The UCI’s current cycling standards for transgendered people to participate in elite racing include: “The latest scientific publications clearly demonstrate that the return of markers of endurance capacity to ‘female level’ occurs within six to eight months under low blood testosterone, while the awaited adaptations in muscle mass and muscle strength/power take much longer (two years minimum according to a recent study).”
Given the important role played by muscle strength and power in cycling performance, the UCI has decided to increase the transition period on low testosterone from 12 to 24 months.
The UCI has also decided to lower the maximum permitted plasma testosterone level (currently 5 nmol/L) to 2.5 nmol/L. This value corresponds to the maximum testosterone level found in 99.99% of the female population. CyclingWeekly.com: UCI tightens rules for transgender cyclists: Two Year Wait Before Competition Allowed
Take Away Point
- Title IX was developed to promote and support the participation of girls and women in sports. The 2023 executive order concerning Title IX erases those protections for girls and women.
- Transgender women should be allowed to compete in any sport of their choosing. But not at the physical, emotional, or financial cost of biological girls and women. With the amount of energy, attention, support and resources transgender women are currently receiving, a new category of competition shouldn’t be too difficult to create. Think Paralympics, Special Olympics, Invictus Games.
- This blog, just as all the others I have written, is my opinion and is intended to stimulate thought and discussion. Thank you for reading my blog.
No content in this blog was created by AI (artificial intelligence). The information presented is the perspective of the author and material amassed from 40+ years as a clinical social worker.
With warmest regards,
Thank you so much for reading this blog. If you enjoyed the content, please check out other blogs at:
https://relationshipsrelearned.com/my-blog/
https://rvingnomads.com/blog/
You can now view my books that are available on my Amazon Authors Page.
To be notified of future posts, please enter your email address and click on the Subscribe button.
