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There is so much talk about fairness and equality these days that it is hard to fathom the inequality and injustice prevalent in girls and women’s sports. Even Title IX, which ensured equal investment in and commitment to women’s athletics for many years has been stretched, molded and redirected to now include “gender identity or expression.”
The issue is not one of avoiding inclusivity or denying anyone’s personal identity. It’s about fair play and safety, genetics and biology, and allowing transgender athletes to compete against, most often defeat, and quite often injure biological females in competition is setting back rather than enhancing the situation.
By now, most everyone knows about transgender swimmer Lia Thomas defeating female swimmers after being an average. Even worse than robbing biological women of the victories they trained so hard for and deserved was the outright ignorance of the women’s rights when they were forced to share a locker room with a trans athlete with intact male genitalia. This is wrong on so many ethical, common sense and decency levels.
Will the craziness in our society never end? It seems each story is worse than before. Payton McNabb, a female volleyball player in North Carolina, suffered a serious injury and was knocked unconscious when a trans-identified yet male player spiked a ball and hit her in the head.
Then there was the six-feet-tall trans-identified yet male player who not only had facial hair but the size and strength to match and played for the KIPP Academy girls basketball team.
As recently as May 4, 2024, Sadie Schreiner, a transgender track runner for the Rochester Institute of Technology, won two individual women’s events at the Division III Liberty League Championships. Schreiner’s winning times in the 200-meter and 400-meter races were slower than the last place finishers in the men’s same events.
As they say in the sporting world, the “hits” just keep coming.
If we truly want to be fair to everyone as so many people say but evidently don’t really mean, we will designate separate categories for males, females and transgender athletes. That way, everyone can participate without anyone having any obvious unfair advantages and the competitions will be decided by hard work, dedication and fair playing conditions.
Gerard O’Donnell
Wilkes-Barre