Why can’t we insist that men’s athletics accommodate gender diversity?
The threat to Title IX and the elephant in the locker room
“We are approaching a landmark point in the Nation's history. On July 21st, Title IX Regulations prohibiting sex discrimination against women in education are scheduled to take effect. This is appropriate in 1975, International Womens' Year. The law underlying these regulations is based on the sound premise that, in a knowledge-based society, equal opportunity in education is fundamental to equality in all other forms of human endeavor… The President signed the Title IX Regulations on May 27. I call upon every American to support Title IX, as an affirmation of the principles of equality upon which our Nation was founded. The most effective enforcement of all is a public which supports the law. Much of the discrimination against women in education today exists unconsciously and through practices long enshrined in tradition. The Regulations require that during the next year those in education begin a searching self-examination to identify any discriminatory policies or practices which may exist within their institutions and to take whatever remedial action is needed…”
— Caspar Weinberger, Press Release, June 3, 1975
https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0039/1534682.pdf
In January 2021, the Biden Administration took action to explicitly equate “gender identity” with “sex” for Title IX purposes. This constitutes a redefinition of the meaning of “sex” but it also reconfigures the idea of discrimination. Title IX arose in response to an educational culture that disadvantaged women by offering them fewer opportunities and different treatment relative to males. The Biden directives seem to originate in a faulty analogy that implies this expansion of the meaning of “sex” responds to a women’s culture that disadvantages trans-identified males (i.e., transwomen) by not offering them the same opportunities and treatment that natal females can take for granted.
While there is controversy over questions of natal males receiving scholarships or awards reserved for women, the primary difficulty the Biden changes have caused involve athletic participation. Everyone knows that it is unfair for men to compete against women in swimming, boxing, soccer, etc., including the highly dogmatic activists who pretend otherwise. There is nothing “hateful” about acknowledging facts, but there is something unsettling and suspicious about denying them.
Curiously, it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that the actual sex discrimination trans-identified males are experiencing comes from other males, not from women. The focus could be on insisting that male athletic divisions accommodate them regardless of their gender presentation, protect them from harassment and mistreatment, and deal with them the same as non-trans male athletes. Those who persist in discriminatory behavior (because of their targets’ gender identities) can and should face serious sanctions; such an approach seems to have worked for creating racial diversity in athletics, and there’s every reason to believe it would work, too, for promoting gender diversity in men’s sports.
What we have now is pointless back-and-forth arguments devolving into ad hominem attacks — and like our ineffectual policing and criminal justice policies, such nonsense is pushing growing numbers of citizens toward illiberal and authoritarian attitudes. There are actually people now who claim to be Democrats but who are planning to vote for Trump because “at least he knows what a woman is”. The notion of someone as perverted as Trump becoming the hero who arrives at the eleventh hour to save Title IX just in time for its 50th anniversary feels ineffably depressing. But that may well be in the cards.
Q&A regarding athletics (from the original Title IX documents):
Maybe i misunderstood, but how can men accomodate "transwomen," if the latter insist they are women?