Competition is the name of the game, but what constitutes fair rivalry? With today’s progressives trying to change everything, including how genders should be addressed, who is in the right when it comes to females in sports and transgenders competing against them? As Liberty Nation’s Onar Am said, “Just as you need different weight classes in boxing or wrestling to make the competition fair, you also need a separate category for women so that they have a chance to compete on equal biological terms.” Thankfully, at least one politician is aiming to correct this matter: Rep. Bill Klippert. The Republican has filed in the Washington state legislature House Bill 2201, which would prevent biological males who identify as females from competing in some women’s sports.
According to the bill, however, this exclusion would not necessarily apply to all female sports. It is designed to target those activities intended only for female students, and it must be an individual competition such as track.
“I’m running this in support of female athletes,” Klippert said, “so they can compete against each other and not have to compete against male athletes who have different hormones flowing through their veins, which gives them much more muscle capacity.”
What’s surprising is that this legislation has been proposed in liberal state such as Washington. What’s not surprising is the backlash it’s receiving from LGBTQ activist groups. One such, PFLAG, claimed the bill is “at its core an attempt to invalidate transgender and gender non-binary identity.”
Klippert’s bill is meant to protect natural-born female rights, not dehumanize transgender people as PFLAG implies. Using that logic, allowing transgenders to compete against females would be an “attempt to invalidate” the latter. PFLAG continued its argument, saying there is no evidence that transgender athletes cause any “serious danger” to the sports in which they participate. That would depend on how “danger” is defined and interpreted. Physical? Emotional? Extinction to female competitive sports?
Without enumerating the biological differences between males and females, the trend of born-males winning titles in women’s sports should be proof enough that the odds are stacked in their favor when competing against natural-born females. The separation of sports by gender was done so that women could compete on a level playing field.
PFLAG insisted transgender people deserve their constitutional rights, but what about those of natural-born females? “Transgender people are people, non-binary people are people, they are entitled to a recognition of who they are and to have their civil rights and basic dignity honored,” the organization asserted. The question is, do their rights supersede others’?
Save Women’s Sports produced an article on its website entitled “Male Athletes Are Taking Over Women’s Cycling.” In the piece, Mary Verrandeaux, a member of the 1985 U.S. National Team, said:
“It is without a doubt that allowing men, who identify as women, to continue to compete in women’s categories is the end of women’s sports. Women’s opportunities, records, scholarships, and championships are now being awarded to biological men. This has already destroyed the sanctified intent of women competing against other women – not women competing against biological men who ‘identify as women.’”
Recognizing and respecting people for who they are – biologically or emotionally — does not mean trouncing other individuals’ rights. Here’s a little food for thought. If transgenders who identify as females can’t understand the ‘danger’ they pose to the world of women’s sports, then how can they truly claim to be female? If they cannot identify with the challenges facing natural-born females as they usurp their titles and trophies, how can they claim womanhood?
Save Women’s Sports summarized the issue:
“This is the beginning of the end for women’s sports. We cannot allow this abuse of female athletes and mockery of women’s sports to continue. It is not bigotry to defend biology, and it is not hate speech to defend your rights.”
Although House Bill 2201 has been only pre-filed, it is at least a step in the right direction. It is hoped more Washington state lawmakers will join in its support. It must be introduced in the House before it can move to a committee.
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Read more from Kelli Ballard.
