Transgender Women In Sports

A few days ago I decided to listen to the legal presentation of the issues regarding what is a fair treatment of transgender women in women’s sports during Supreme Court deliberations. I was looking for the ethical arguments as well as the legal arguments regarding this issue. I have already written a blog on the issue of transgender rights and limitations.

One of the basic legal/ethical issues that was referred to more than anything else is the Title IX Education Act signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1972. It recognized equal rights for all which is an excellent theme during this celebration of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and legacy today. Title IX prohibited gender-based discrimination in sports programs. Schools and colleges were given three years to fulfill this requirement.

Title IX became the fulcrum around much of the discussion by members of the Supreme Court and the lawyers who presented both sides of the issue of transgender women in sports. The Supreme Court seems poised to uphold state laws from West Virginia and Idaho to ban transgender women in women’s sports.

They were basing their three-hour conversation to discuss whether to ban transgender women from women sports based on biological sex rather than gender identity. It should be noted that the Court did not lean toward a broader national law, but one that should be decided by individual states. Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he said that there are two sexes, male and female, creating a national standard that everyone laughed off as Trump being Trump. But there was a method to his madness as he was frustrated by people with different named genders and pronouns across a wider range of identities known as LGBTQ and more.

It would be safe to say that Title XI provided opportunities for the growth of women’s sports in America as well as equal facilities all of which were under the umbrella of being fair. Recall that being fair and just are at the heart of ethics as well as Dr. King’s message.

Robyn E. Blummer frames the argument this way. ”Is it truly necessary to separate sports by sex? The issue arises because transgender athletes who have undergone male puberty are seeking to compete with natal (natural) women athletes. In the name of transgender rights should this be permitted or does it inherently undermine the fair playing field that sports demand”. This is a summary of three hours of debate with the conservative judges appearing to back the ban and the liberal judges signaling their support for transgender women having equal access to sports with natural women athletes.

At one touchy moment one of the members of the Court asked a lawyer for the definition of sex. He did not answer the question as I am sure that he recalled Trump’s limited understanding of scientific information and the consensus that human sexuality exists on a spectrum of different manifestations of sexuality. This is why members of the LBGTQ community were concerned about any possibility of gay marriage not being upheld by the court opening a Pandora’s Box,

The arguments moved to a place that is scientific in nature which provided clues. This is where both sides of the argument find some footing. How can something or someone be fair if there are biological differences between transgender women and natural women.

Sone of us remember Billie Jean King challenged by Bobby Riggs to a tennis match who said that women were inferior to men in sports. I would venture to say that his testosterone levels were more than King’s. He Lost. Today in the argument regarding fairness, a good bit of the science rests on testosterone levels. You can get scientific studies to support both sides of the issue.

I always told my ethics students that I would tell them what I believe about an issue after they share their views so that they could have an unbiased conversation. It’s the only way to teach and learn ethics.

So, here is my view. I will use a local example. Penn had a controversy on their hands when Lia Thomas won the free style swimming competition where she was Number 1 and was All American in the 200 and 100 free styles as a transgender woman. When she competed as a male, she was 69^th on the men’s team and 554^thin the 200th in the freestyle. I believe that transgender women have a biological advantage over biological females at birth. The President of the NCAA has reported that there are not even 10 transgender women of the more than 500,000 women in sports.

But there is something important as fairness in sports for transgender people. The ACLU is committed to something more deeply ethical than a level playing field as important as that is for them. They have the “slippery slope” ethical perspective that if we don’t stand up for this fairness, things will just get worse.

The concern is the bullying of transgender people who are often isolated and ostracized. 46% of transgender youth and those who are non-binary (don’t fit traditional male and female role) have considered suicide in 2024. Transgender people don’t fit everyone in the conservative ideology where Trump’s words resonate that these people are just making their identity up. I have known transgender students who have experienced real freedom when they can claim their sexual identity. I don’t know this only by statistics. I know this by parents of transgender youth who have told me directly how it has changed their son or daughter’s life to act on their feelings that they are a man or woman.

I had Clemmie Engle come to EA to speak at the beginning of an alumni weekend. The 50^th reunion class that was all male wanted her to speak because she represented the best in humankind. The 50^th reunion class chooses the speaker for that weekend. She was an award-winning attorning in Colorado. When she finished speaking, she received a standing ovation. I believe that once you get to know a person, you can’t put a label on them. After a dinner that evening, she said to me as we were saying goodbye, “Jim, it’s going to come down to bathrooms. I didn’t know then what she meant. Now I do!