By PAUL NATINSKY
Ten seconds is an eternity in a sprint event such as the 400 meter race in track and field. The race in question, at a recent high school event in Oregon, won by transgender 10th-grader Ada Gallagher, is the latest episode turning up the heat on biological males competing in female athletic competitions.
Fiery arguments pitting competitive fairness against self-actualization aside, it occurs to me that the movement for transgender rights has much bigger fish to fry, particularly at a time when the President of the United States has decreed transgender people out of existence.
It would seem that issues historically faced by the gay community, such as laws regarding legal standing—including the right to marry and all of the spousal rights and privileges that entails, the right to non-discrimination in employment and housing, legal standing to adopt children, to name a few— would be frontline priorities, with athletics being a distant concern.
In keeping with the analogy, imagine the gay community 20 or 30 years ago prioritizing acceptance of openly gay players in pro football while issues like gay marriage and employment discrimination were still very much in flux.
I know a number of gay people who very likely would have lived their lives openly, married in their 20s or early 30s, had children, bought property jointly and enjoyed the same rights and privileges as their straight neighbors.
For those of the immediate past generation and beyond, It has to be bittersweet to see people like politician Pete Buttigieg serve in the military, become a mayor and later a presidential candidate and cabinet secretary, marry and have children—all things well out of reach for an openly gay man 10 to 20 years ago.
The continuing march toward gay rights was painfully incremental and fraught with setbacks, which likely forced a prioritization of issues. Despite its formation in a painful crucible, the focus of the gay rights movement has some lessons for other groups traveling a similar path.
Returning to trans girls and women competing in female athletic competitions, well, as complicated as it seems, I think the solution there is very simple: biological males should compete against boys and men. Period.
In every other aspect of a person’s life, that person’s self-actualization—what they wear, the pronouns they choose, the bathroom they use, whom they marry and, of course, the gender with which they identify are entirely their choice and substantially affect only them.
But presently, people cannot entirely escape the morphology of their birth. And that fact sets up a litany of equity issues for those with whom trans athletes compete. I can personally attest to the sacrifices in time, emotional energy and money that serious young female athletes and their families make for their sport.
To suddenly be up against a biologically stronger and faster athlete who is operating with a body possessed of the athletic frame of an adolescent boy is beyond unfair. The records earned, the achievements born of months and years of training, the hard-fought wins are washed away overnight.
Further, there is a more subtle, but infinitely more important, aspect to female athletics that bears discussion. Female athletes have far fewer financial opportunities than their male counterparts, but endure the same—sometimes worse—brutal competition for roster spots and (lesser) scholarships.
As the parent of a female athlete heading to a D-1 school this fall, our family made these sacrifices. There came a point at which I began an open-ended cost-benefit analysis.
As I watched my daughter learn to present her profile to the college coaching community, interview with coaches, attend camps and showcases, and visit university campuses, all while playing interstate travel soccer and high school soccer, it became clear to me. The discipline, focus, interpersonal and leadership skills she was developing would directly translate to her life beyond college. She would be a more finished and polished professional, a more sophisticated and dynamic leader, a sensitive and empathetic citizen of the world.
To weaken her accomplishments and render her hard work less meaningful in the service of executing a broad, hastily conceived agenda, is simply unfair.
Somewhere, there is a healthy balance between glacial incrementalism and idealogically driven haste. I remain hopeful that we find that sweet spot in these suffocatingly regressive times.