Politixia
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Judging from the coverage of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the rights of states to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports, you would think trans athletes had been banned from competing altogether.
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Well, not quite. What the court said is that children who are born in male bodies, but who identify as female, are welcome to compete — on boys’ teams.
That seems eminently reasonable, given that male bodies have a natural advantage over female ones when it comes to strength and muscle power.
The AP story quotes Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing in the decision, that “states may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females.”
The International Olympic Committee, World Aquatics and other sports governing bodies have adopted policies that restrict the participation of biological males in female sport.
That’s not always the case in this country. Canada is an outlier on the issue of transgender participation in sport.
Last year, Skate Canada took the extraordinary step of saying it will no longer hold national and international events in Alberta because of that province’s legislation banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.
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A ruling by the Supreme Court of the U.K. last year said the definition of sex is “binary” and decided by biology. A person who was not born as a biological female cannot obtain legal protections afforded to women by changing their gender with a Gender Recognition Certificate.
The landmark decision came about after the Scottish government allowed transgender women to be included as women in quotas to ensure gender balance on public sector boards.
It is remarkable that, while there have been numerous cases of biological men attempting to participate as women in sport, very few transgender men — i.e., women who identify as men — do the same thing.
We’re all for freedom of expression and the right of any person to dress how they want and live their life as they see fit. But when those rights conflict with the rights of girls and women to fairness in sports and safety in single-sex spaces such as changerooms, obviously fairness and safety trump all other considerations.
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