The Biggest Threat to Women’s Sports

Transgenderism, not men, are the biggest threat to the future of women’s sports

Let’s start with the basics of men’s and women’s sport, why are they divided by sex?

Why is there not just one United States Soccer team? Why do we separate it between men (who didn’t qualify for the World Cup) and women (who just won the World Cup, again)? Why do we not just say, lets make one team, the best 30 soccer players in the United States can play and end this men verse women argument in pay, endorsements and media attention?

The answer is obvious, if we abolished the dividing line, there would never again be a woman in the United States to play in the World Cup. Men are better athletes than women.

This is the same for UConn basketball, where Geno Auriemma has created a dynasty in women’s basketball, they are the stick by which all other women’s basketball programs are judged. Yet if the men’s and women’s team ceased to exist and only a single UConn Huskies basketball team was formed, it would be filled with men. That is because men are better athletes than women. If you doubt this basic concept please read here and then get back to us.

So, the division and creation of men’s and women’s sports is to the advantage of women. It gives women the opportunity to compete against each other on a level playing field. Is it inherently unfair that men were created with higher muscle mass and women a womb, maybe. But it doesn’t erase the facts of the biology.

That does not mean there are not exceptions.

I was a Division I swimmer in college. I am also a woman.  In my prime if we had all of the men in the world race me, I would have beaten more than half of them. Yet, if I only raced men who had swam for as long as I had or trained as often as I, I would probably beat 10 percent of them.

That doesn’t diminish my abilities as a swimmer. Rather the separation that allowed me the opportunity to compete against other women proved that I was of the top 10 percent of women in the entire United States. A feat I am, and ought to be, proud of.

Serena Williams is a phenomenal athlete, with a serve speed that places her with some men. Yet she could not compete on the men’s professional circuit. Again, if there is any doubt about this please read this full argument here.

The fight for women’s sports and the rise of great women athletes has become normal over the last 100 years. And I am proud of the women before me that have fought to create women’s teams in basketball and soccer and professionalism in sports like tennis and golf. These pioneers have allowed female athletes to thrive right along side their male counterparts. Not in competition with them, but in conjunction in striving for greatness.

But there is a threat to women’s sports. And it’s not found in men trying to get rid of women’s sports. It’s not in companies or leagues trying to not pay female athletes. No, it’s not in men at all. Or at least not in the cis-gender, traditional sense of the world male.

The threat comes from the transgender community and where to put biological men that now identify as women.

Let’s be clear, transgender athletes are a very, very small minority of the many athletes about the world of competitive sports. But they continue to garner headlines as well as control of the narrative in a dogmatic way.

But their insistence that the gender of their choice is the one they compete in and not the biologically developed one is a major threat to women’s sports. Martina Navratilova spoke about this bluntly. She received terrible criticism for it, including losing her spot on various committees. But she was right. A male who has spent their youth developing with the hormones of their biological gender are at a clear advantage to women who never had that.

In the Gay Games they have been dealing with this issue for some time. A little history on the Gay Games. The Gay Games began in San Francisco in 1982 and has continued every four years. It is open to all, Gay, Straight, Transgender etc. They state their goals is to break records and compete hard. They define their event by their inclusiveness but also competitive play, meaning here is a great place to look at Transgenderism within sport.

In the Gay Games Gender Policy they state that because they are a completely inclusive event, individuals are allowed to play based on the gender they identify with. The rules state, “It will not be tolerated for any participant to question the gender of another competitor.”

Transgender women, meaning biological men that now identify as women, have taken over a number of sports. Tennis, for example, has driven out the biological women because of the transgender participation in the women’s divisions, according to participants in the event.

Yet when I reached out to the Gay Games for comment and clarification on this issue it was clear, questioning the gender of another competitor is not allowed.

But in the Gay Games, an event that has been inclusive, has found a fault. It has driven out competitive biological women from their events because they cannot or do not find enjoyment or fairness in competing against women who spent their youth developing to be men.

This issue has raised its head again and again. Whether it’s the bicycle world championships or power lifting or track and field, what to do with biological men who now identify as women in sports.

It is the biggest threat to women’s sports.

If we start allowing biological men to compete with women, even with hormone replacing drugs, it will completely change the sport. Just looking at the Gay Games, that has spent 30 years exploring the completely wide open, no-questions-asked policy that the transgender community wants the rest of the sporting world to accept, you can see it has been bad for women’s sports. It has driven women out. It has not affected the male athletes.

It is completely unfair to ask women to compete against individuals who spent their youth developing to be men. It is wrong to say, there is no difference between being a man and a women in a sporting event. It that was the case we should eliminate women’s sports all together and have a single professional tennis circuit.

This is a threat to all the advances and achievements women athletes have made over the last 50 years.

Biology matters in sports, and if we don’t work to protect women’s sports by keeping only biological women in it, it will destroy women’s sports.