The trans athlete debate is simply about fairness

Interscholastic sports have always been divided into male and female categories, not because of prejudice or emotion, but because of a basic recognition of biological realities. Men and women, generally, possess distinct physical attributes — men tend to have greater muscle mass, bone density and cardiovascular capacity. Male puberty typically confers advantages in speed, strength and endurance. These self-evident differences are why we have separate competitions for girls and boys in the first place. If those bodily dissimilarities didn’t exist, girls and boys would always compete together in student athletics as they do in other high school competitions such as spelling bees, debate and chess, where the physical characteristics of the participants are irrelevant.

Women’s sports have historically been underfunded, under-promoted and undervalued. But Title IX and pioneering female athletes helped change that. Allowing trans athletes who enjoy undeniable and intrinsic somatic advantages to compete in women-only sports threatens these hard-won gains.

This is not a hypothetical concern. Just ask the United Nations. Titled “Violence against women and girls in sports,” a study released last summer found that by March of last year, “over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports.”

The report was created by U.N. special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, who noted in presenting it to the U.N. General Assembly: “As patriarchal structures continue to evolve, women and girls in sport are experiencing new forms of discrimination based on their sex … One glaring example is opening the female category of sports to males, further undermining their access to equal opportunities and the right to participate in safety, dignity and fairness.”

We saw some of this here in Minnesota last summer when a transgender high school student pitched her female opponents into oblivion and led her team to a state title. According to a news report, she threw five straight games in the playoffs and gave up only a single earned run in 35 total innings pitched — and mowed down 27 hitters with strikeouts. I certainly wish this transgender athlete well and hope she has a happy life, but this was not fair to her hardworking female opponents.

As Kendall Kotzmacher, a player on an opposing team, told Fox News Digital: “I have seen movement pitches, so when your hands are bigger than a biological female at that age, in Minnesota especially, you’re spinning the ball 10 times more. And I would actually say that this athlete wasn’t on their best game that day, but even at half their best, they’re still blowing it past us, spinning the ball more, making it so we can’t hit.”