It’s easy to tell when a psychiatrist is in the tank for transgenders in sports. First, he only addresses the underlying problem of psychological confusion very late in his LGBT-approved puff piece. Then, he slams lawmakers for trying to preserve the integrity of women’s sports and says trans girls should not have to "lie" about their gender and play on boys teams.
Jack Turban is a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine and researches the mental health of transgender youth. His slanted opinion piece – “Trans Girls Belong on Girls’ Sports Teams, There is no scientific case for excluding them” – appears on the site Scientific American.
Buried near the end of Turban’s story, he argues that the current legislative attempts around the country to keep boys from obliterating girls’ sports competition are unnecessary:
“Beyond the trauma of sex-verification exams, these bills would cause further emotional damage to transgender youth. …”
This is putting the cart before the horse. The reason boys want to compete as “girls” is because of pre-existing confusion in their gender identity. We did not see the boys Terry Miller or Andraya Yearwood emotionally damaged while they were breaking 17 state girls sprinting records in Connecticut (see above artist’s drawing of effect of denying biology in sports).
Turban asserts there is no epidemic of transgender girls dominating female sports: “Attempts to force transgender girls to play on the boys’ teams are unconscionable attacks on already marginalized transgender children, and they don’t address a real problem. They’re unscientific, and they would cause serious mental health damage to both cisgender and transgender youth.”
So, the adults in the room should encourage children in their gender confusion? Yes, says the psychiatrist.
Turban says girls win most of the competitions in female sports. Which is true because there aren’t hordes of cosmetic-and hormone-altered boys clamoring for acceptance on girls’ teams. But those who do so demonstrate clear and unfair physical advantages. He also mentions that Miller and Yearwood failed to win their sprint races immediately after Alliance Defending Freedom sued the state of Connecticut. Dubious timing! Each of the boxing bums of the week who lost to Mike Tyson in the first round also took a dive.
Turban says the many state bills seeking to assure competitive fairness for girls lack scientific validity. He can’t excuse the statistical validity of Rachel McKinnon, Craig “Cece” Telfer, or June Eastwood -- all males who exceeded the performances of female athletes.
Reaching deep into his bag of weak excuses for trans girls, Turban says it’s also more difficult for them to train and compete because they have higher rates of homelessness and poverty due to family rejection. Just one problem with that: when biological boys compete against girls, they consistently do so at or near the top of their competition.
One of Turban’s digs at the state legislative bills is that these measures will force transgenders to "lie" about their sex! Isn’t that what they’re already doing through cosmetic disguises to gain membership on girls teams?
Turban says it’s hard for “cisgenders” (the people we neanderthals refer to as regular boys and girls) to understand that trans athletes are “miserable and confused” if told they are not girls and forced to play on the boys team throughout their school years.
Turban advises lawmakers to work on more important things — “instead of manufacturing problems and ‘solutions’ that hurt the kids we are supposed to be protecting.”
Here's another suggestion. How about counselors actually work with young people to address their psychological struggles, instead of encouraging them to continue in their confusion and delusion.
