An in-depth New York Times examination of the controversy over males competing in women's sports stumbles out of the starting blocks and limps home to the finish line. The story by Gillian R. Brassil and Jeré Longman on Tuesday is mostly supportive of transgenders competing with opposite-gender sports and cites some dubious sources.
The Times' analysis contains seven highly debatable points.
1. "(S)cientific and societal views of sex and gender identity have changed significantly in recent decades."
This is incorrect. Biological science is not a "view" and has not changed, no matter how often LGBT advocates claim it has.
2. "The Trump administration and some states have sought to roll back protections for transgender people in health care, the military and other areas of civil rights, fueling a rise in hate crimes, according to the Human Rights Campaign."
The HRC, one of the most powerful and well-funded LGBT pressure groups, is presented as a credible source on this? Get real!
3. A new Idaho law banning males in women's sports was passed this spring, and the ACLU challenged it in federal court, claiming it violated equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Ah, the good old 14th Amendment is typically the Left's go-to amendment used to defend specious arguments, such as abortion (in the Roe v. Wade decision by SCOTUS).
4. "Chief U.S. District Judge David C. Nye temporarily halted the (Idaho) law on Monday, writing in an 87-page injunction that a 'categorical bar to girls and women who are transgender stands in stark contrast to the policies of elite athletic bodies that regulate sports both nationally and globally.' ” Is this judge really deferring to the leftists at the NCAA and International Olympic Committee to determine U.S. law? Yes, and the NYT does not find this form of judicial jujitsu objectionable.
5. "Scientists have long said there is no single biological factor that determines sex, and the sex assigned at birth is not considered the sole determinant of gender." Just where would the above link take NYT readers? To the pro-trans story "Why Sex Is Not Binary" by Anne Fausto-Sterling -- a gender studies professor at the Ivy League's Brown University. Fausto-Sterling argues, "It has long been known that there is no single biological measure that unassailably places each and every human into one of two categories — male or female." Known by LGBT activists and their media lackeys, that is.
6. "Guidelines regarding transgender athletes represent 'sport’s unsolvable problem,' said Ross Tucker, a South African exercise physiologist who is helping World Rugby develop its eligibility rules." Tucker says it is impossible to balance the values of competitive fairness, inclusion and safety. No, this "problem" is very solvable. Men should man-up and compete in men's sports.
7. "Contrary to fears expressed by some, there has been no large-scale dominance of transgender athletes in women’s sports." Talk about defeating your own argument, the Times writers mention world champion cyclist Rachel McKinnon, a man dominating a women's sport, and Cece Telfer (the dude who does not look like a lady, seen towering over real women in above photo), a man dominating women's college track and field. The Times mentions a researcher's estimation that 0.00025 percent of college athletes are transgender, begging the questions "Why are we having these arguments when only a tiny percentage of athletes are suffering gender confusion?" and "Why are men allowed to take scholarships away from female athletes?"
Brassil and Longman do make some concessions to biological realities, again defeating their earlier contentions.
They acknowledge evidence suggesting "residual strength and muscle mass advantages largely remain when people assigned as males at birth undergo testosterone suppression for a year." Men and women mostly compete in separate divisions because males have "larger skeletal structure, greater muscle mass and strength, less body fat, greater bone density, larger hearts and greater oxygen-carrying capacity."
Also, a 2019 Swedish study of 11 transgender women reported that a year of testosterone suppression resulted in a "negligible decrease in strength" in trans men's thigh muscles and muscle mass.
Give biology yet another victory over the social engineers and their media friends.
