With reference to articles, July 1 and 2 about the SCOTUS transgender sports ruling:
Physical differences between the human male and the human female begin from the moment of conception. Compared to the female, the male will develop with more skeletal muscle mass, particularly in the upper body, have longer limbs, larger bone density, higher red blood cell count per pound, greater lung capacity, a larger heart, and have distinct sight advantages tracking fast-movement and detecting distant movement. The trajectory of these developments begin in utero and result in profound advantages of the male in athletic events. None of these inherent advantages, in process from the moment of conception, are subject to alteration by surgeries or hormone therapies.
That is precisely why, in December of 2021, Penn State’s Lia Thomas, a trans woman allowed to compete in NCAA women’s meets, won the 200-yard freestyle by 7 seconds, the 500-yard freestyle by 14 seconds and the 1650-yard freestyle by 38 seconds, setting in that one race pool, meet, and Penn State records. Thomas won all three races by margins that are unheard of in that intensely competitive level of woman’s swimming. Swimming formerly in men’s events, Thomas would never have qualified for the NCAA finals at all; allowed to swim in women’s events, Thomas walked away with gold medals and set a host of records probably untouchable by female swimmers.
The inherent physical advantage of the male is also why Serena Williams laughingly declined to compete against male tennis pro Andy Murray saying that men and women’s tennis are “basically two completely different sports,” that men serve harder, hit harder, and move significantly faster than she could, that if she did play him, she’d lose 6-0, 6-0 in “five or six minutes.” I readily accept that Serena Williams is a far better informed judge of professional tennis, and of her own skills relative to her male compatriots, than I am. Perhaps trans activists would be willing to tell us why she is wrong.
The 16-year-old, Becky Pepper-Jackson, cited in both articles, “beat the second-place finisher by two feet [in the shot put] in last month’s West Virginia championship meet.” We’re told by trans activists that this should be regarded as a “girl” competing in complete fairness and equity with other girls. The reality is obvious. Two feet. In the shot put! Neither an altered birth certificate, an early “transition,” nor a prescription of puberty blockers can undo what began in the womb of Pepper-Jackson’s mother 16 years ago.
No one is being denied “equal access” or “the opportunity to participate in school sports” by the court’s ruling. What it affirms is that an individual’s “gender identity” does not magically make genetic reality irrelevant. Trans women are not women. They are males who identify as female. They are, however, from conception, male and benefit from very distinct physical advantages athletically over their female peers.
There are people all across America who cheer on daughters, nieces, cousins, granddaughters, and sisters in competitive sports. They value the efforts of those children and want to see them do all they can manage to do athletically. The vast majority are also not deluded by trans ideology. They recognize the inherent inequity of boys being allowed to compete on girls’ sports teams.
As desperately as trans activists try to pose this as a red state/blue state issue, it is not; it is an issue of science, human development. The left responds reflexively to the dog-whistles of “exclusion” and “oppression” and so is evidently unable to disengage itself from an ideology notably lacking verifiable science, dependent instead on word-play and emotional blackmail. It is embarrassing to me, a lifelong Democrat, that on this issue the right can cite long-standing science, and finally, simple common sense in affirming that boys, regardless of how they regard themselves, do not belong on girls’ sports teams.
Stephen Hussey lives in Greenfield.