MYTH #1: Sex is binary, apparent at birth, and identifiable through singular biological characteristics.
The ACLU responds to this by claiming that,
There is no one way for our bodies to be. Women, including women who are transgender, intersex, or disabled, have a range of different physical characteristics. Biological sex and gender are not binaries. There are no set hormone ranges, body parts, or chromosomes that all people of a particular sex or gender have.Well, that's not true. Of course it's the case that there's a range of physical characteristics like height, weight and hormones, but it doesn't follow that there are no "normal" values for sex specific characteristics. Males have an X and a Y chromosome, females have two X chromosomes.
Females have a uterus and ovaries, they menstruate and lactate. Males have a prostate and testes. They generally have stronger bones, more muscle mass and larger hearts and lungs. There may be a few exceptions to all this, but if so, they're so far out on the tail of the bell curve as to be negligible.
MYTH #2: Trans athletes' physiological characteristics provide an unfair advantage over cis athletes.
The ACLU claims that,
Trans athletes vary in athletic ability just like cisgender athletes. In many states, the very same cis girls who have claimed that trans athletes have an "unfair" advantage have consistently performed as well as or better than transgender competitors.This is disingenuous. Simply because an outstanding female athlete can beat many trans athletes, it doesn't follow that, on average, women will be able to successfully compete against biological men. As more male athletes declare themselves to be women, fewer female athletes will experience athletic success, and even the top female athletes will experience less success than they would have otherwise.
Moreover, if trans athletes have no physical advantage over cis athletes why do we not see biological females competing against men in most sports beyond elementary school? How many WNBA players could play in the NBA? How many female tennis players could win championships if they had to compete against males?
It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. If anyone thinks male bodies have no physical advantage over female bodies they might consider transgender Australian rugby player Hannah Mouncey:
The ACLU responds that,
Excluding women who are trans hurts all women. It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests or accusations of being "too masculine" or "too good" at their sport to be a "real" woman.So what? Why should the feelings of trans athletes be allowed to trump the feelings of their female competitors? We test athletes for PEDs and Covid. Why can't women be required to submit to a test that would ascertain their sex if there's reason to question it? I'm quite sure that most female competitors would happily submit to a DNA test if it meant filtering out biological males.
MYTH #4: Trans students need separate teams.
The ACLU responds that,
Trans people, like all people, may experience detrimental effects to their physical and emotional well-being when they are pushed out of affirming spaces and communities. Efforts to exclude subsets of girls from sports can undermine team unity. And youth derive the most benefits from athletics when they are exposed to caring environments where teammates are supported by each other and by coaches.This is a completely irrelevant response. All the goods that the ACLU mentions here can be obtained by having leagues consisting of biological males who believe that they're actually females or by requiring biological males to compete with other males.
Of course, the numbers of trans athletes in high schools are doubtless insufficient to support a league, but that's not a justification for prioritizing the benefits to a very small number of athletes over the rest of the female athletes who compete against them. On what grounds is such a privilege warranted? The ACLU doesn't tell us.
The ACLU's attempt to justify allowing biological males to compete against females in scholastic supports needs to be made considerably stronger than this if it's going to be even slightly persuasive, and the Biden administration's decision to buy into reasons like these in order to appease progressives looks increasingly more foolish the more people try to defend it.
