Analysis

Intellectual honesty requires the acknowledgment of the physical differences in males and females beyond the biology of chromosomes and reproductive organs. Yet even they are rejected by the transgender movement.

We see these differences, namely size and strength, put biological women in vulnerable situations and even set them up for victimization.

The aggressive movement to embrace the transgender ideology ignores the facts and insists biological men should be housed with women in dorm rooms and domestic violence shelters, share restrooms, locker rooms and showers, even prisons.

Reports of sexual abuse by biological males housed with woman have fallen on deaf ears. One such incident kept a known sexual predator in a women’s facility.[i] A Department of Corrections employee wrote in part, “He is a proven sexual predator, having committed multiple crimes against women, yet the State of Washington had no problem moving him into a women’s facility and housing him with the most vulnerable in our population (our mental health unit).”

Inmate reports of rape, death threats, and physical harm are ignored by politicians who put the trans movement above women’s safety.[ii] Meanwhile, parts of Europe are rolling back their transgender prison policy after male sexual predators attacked female inmates.[iii]

The clear danger in blurring the lines between male and female reaches beyond prison walls to school restrooms and locker rooms. Girls and women are now forced to share private spaces with biological males, risking their safety and forfeiting their privacy. No surprise, this too, has led to sexual assault,[iv] as well as triggering fear and anxiety among women who have suffered abuse in the past. The idea of sharing a private space with a biological male sends them back in time to relive the horrors of their abuse.[v]

The political divide apparent in the issue took a hit early in the movement’s efforts when the Georgia ACLU Executive Director resigned over the organization’s insistence on forcing girls to share private spaces with biological males. Maya Dillard Smith came face-to-face with the reality when she and her two young daughters entered a public restroom shared by biological males. She wrote, “My kids were visibly frightened. I was scared. And I was ill-prepared to answer their questions. I’ve been asking those same questions, and now I want to raise an honest conversation about them.”[vi]

Losing Opportunities

Ignoring the physical differences between males and females leads to the detriment of girls and women beyond the threat of bodily harm. It steals opportunities, hard-fought achievements, and their very identity.

When female athletes are forced to compete with biological males, the playing field is no longer level because males have a sizable advantage over females when it comes to physical competition.

Athletic differences:

• Men have circulating testosterone levels 15-times higher than the upper range of circulating testosterone in healthy females, leading to major differences between the sexes in muscle complexion, bone thickness, skeletal muscle mass, and red blood cell count.[vii]
• Males have larger lungs, providing greater oxygen intake.
• Women produce more estrogen than men do, which leads to higher body fat and less lean muscle.[viii]
• Men produce more Type Two muscle fibers (fast-twitch muscles) than they do Type One muscle fibers (slow-twitch),[ix] which gives men more power than women and helps make men stronger and faster.[x]

Biological males are replacing females on the winner’s stand, taking trophies, titles and scholarships away from deserving girls and women. Many are speaking out and fighting back with lawsuits and legislation, even in the face of extreme pressure and risk of being squeezed out of their sport.

Swimmer Riley Gaines has become a pro-women activist after being forced to compete against and share a locker room with “Lia” Thomas. Thomas is a male swimmer who lives as a woman and competes on the University of Pennsylvania swim team. He holds a national championship title even over two Olympian silver medal winners, among other titles in women’s swimming.

Gaines has a huge following as one of the few female athletes willing to speak out against men and boys competing against women and girls – at the expense of her swimming career.[xi]

Save Women’s Sports has become the mantra of female athletes and others trying to put the “fair” back in “fair playing field.” A website under the name tracks the many women cheated out of their titles by men in various sports, educates on the science backing the fact men have an advantage over women, and provides other resources for the fight to protect women’s sports.[xii]

In one of the first lawsuits, a number of female athletes were breaking records on their Connecticut high school track field until two biological boys identified as girls and started competing on the girls’ team. Those boys won 15 championship titles in just two years; 15 titles that would have been held by girls had the competition been fair.[xiii]

As many as thirty-six states have introduced legislation to protect girls and women’s sports, and at least 10 of those have been signed into law. Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act passed the state Senate in 2020 and was on to the House when the COVID pandemic hit, shutting down the state Legislature and all the work to that point. Lawmakers came back and eventually passed the bill in 2022 protecting girls and women athletes from unfair competition, and Governor Doug Ducey signed it into law.

In 2023, two trans-identified boys filed suit against the law, three mothers of female athletes intervened and now the law is held up in litigation.

Trans activists argue against the facts, denying any such physical advantage. While others contend biological males need only to adjust their hormones to be able to fairly compete against women and girls. This thought is behind the many policies requiring a year of hormone therapy before becoming eligible to compete. But the facts show such treatment makes no measurable difference.

A number of studies, including one in the Journal of Medical Ethics found biological males could retain their muscle massthrough training, because of muscle memory. Also, it found that opposite-sex hormones did not alter the athletic-enhancing effects of testosterone on the male body.[xiv] A 2019 rigorous study by the Karolinksa Institute in Sweden came to a similar conclusion, with the scientist stating, “Transgender women did not lose strength at all despite inhibited testosterone production. In addition, the effect on muscle mass of the transgender women was less pronounced than many people previously thought, losing only 5% of the muscle volume over the thigh muscles.”[xv]

Erasing Women

Many women, including feminist groups, fear the aggressive push will not only be the end of female sports, but will ultimately erase women by denying the characteristics of females and forcing people to embrace the faulty notion that men can be women.

To that effort, biological males have worn contraptions allowing them to simulate breastfeeding. But perhaps the most disturbing effort involves men believing they can breastfeed. A recent TV video clip went viral showing a trans couple (male living as a female and a female living as a male) in an intimate setting. The “mother” (biological male) was trying to breastfeed their newborn. In an effort to satisfy the delusion of the adult male, he was subjecting a newborn baby to the futile attempt of obtaining nourishment from a male breast.[xvi]

The effort to dissolve gender differences relies heavily on the careful and consistent use of new language. For example, putting the word “transgender” before the word “woman,” or rejecting the use of the word “male.” After backlash from trans activists, USA Today changed the wording in an op-ed written by Chelsea Mitchell, a student athlete suing for a level playing field. The paper replaced the word “male” in every instance in the op-ed to the word “transgender” and condemned her use of “hurtful language.”[xvii] Distinguishing between a biological female and a biological male is now deemed hurtful by mainstream news media.

One need not even be a biological female to compete against women in beauty pageants, the long-held tradition of women showcasing their beauty, talents, skill, and smarts. A recent Miss USA contestant is a biological male.[xviii]

The movement aims to completely dissolve distinctions between male and female, but a fundamental question is almost universally directed at women. What is a woman? Rarely is the question asked of men. The question of womanhood even stumped the most recent U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearings. When asked to define a woman, she answered, “I can’t… I’m not a biologist.”[xix]

Supreme Court and Federal Law

As the transgender movement marches forward, long held and established norms fall to the pressure, including rules and laws designed to protect girls and women and provide fairness on various levels.

Politicians have told schools to open their restrooms to boys living as girls. They did and the inevitable followed. A boy dressed as a girl was able to use the girls’ school restroom in Loudoun County, Virginia. After he sexually assaulted a female student, school authorities simply transferred him to another school, where he did it again. The Superintendent was removed for covering for the trans movement at the expense of student safety.[xx]

A “gender-fluid” boy sexually assaulted a five-year-old girl in the girls’ school restroom in Decatur, Georgia under school policy that allowed him to use the girls’ room.[xxi]

Some lawmakers shame girls and women who protest to sharing private spaces with men. Arizona Senator Christine Marsh suggested the solution was to put up a shower curtain between the biological boy and the girl. Some lawmakers are clearly not taking the threat to girls and women seriously.

Some current key legal battles:

• Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act ensuring only biological females compete on girls’ and women’s sports teams remains held up in court.
• A Washington state music teacher was forced out of his job after school officials required him to call students by their wrong pronouns and affirm their chosen gender over their true gender in violation of his religious convictions. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the teacher in court.[xxii]
• The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to take up the controversial issue of sex-segregated bathrooms in Gloucester Country School board v. Grimm. In doing so, the school’s mixed sex restroom policy was allowed to stand, forcing girls to share the private space with biologicals boys.[xxiii]
• A family funeral home fired a male employee who stopped following the dress code and began dressing as a woman. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the employee, declaring the firing was based on sex discrimination.[xxiv]
• Not long after that ruling, the Biden Administration issued an Executive Order expanding the decision beyond employment to also include private spaces and athletics.[xxv] More than a dozen states are challenging the Executive order, citing its clear violation of Title IX.[xxvi] The Second Circuit Court of Appeals said in McCormick ex rel. McCormick v. Sch. Dist. of Mamaroneck, 370 F.3d 275, 295 (2d Cir. 2004): “This reality is discrimination against girls that directly violates the requirements of Title IX: ‘Treating girls differently regarding a matter so fundamental to the experience of sports-the chance to be champions-is inconsistent with Title IX’s mandate of equal opportunity for both sexes.’”Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments reads, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Unfortunately, in 2023, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs Arizona, held that “sex” in Title IX includes “sexual orientation.”[xxvii] The Supreme Court will likely revisit the issue given the different conclusions of federal courts.

• Efforts continue in Congress to pass the Equality Act, which, according to the findings of The Heritage Foundation, “would give the federal government the power to dictate how Americans think and act regarding gender and sex. The bill violates constitutional freedoms and weaponizes civil rights laws to punish those who do not hold the “correct” beliefs.” [xxviii]