The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing entitled, “Protecting Pride: Defending the Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,” where former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Riley Gaines gave emotional testimony about her experience losing an NCAA championship to a male transgender swimmer, and having to change in a locker room with the 6’4″ 22-year-old biological man exposing his male genitalia in front of her and other female swimmers.
Senate Democrats, led by Dick Durbin of Illinois, downplayed the elite woman swimmer’s powerful message and delivered general bromides about transgender discrimination and its “divisive and hateful rhetoric” putting “children in danger.” He noted, “LGBTQ+ Americans are asking for no more—and no less—than the full freedom to live as who they are.”
Actually, on this score, transgender activists are indeed asking for a lot more, and their demands discriminate against women athletes who train hard for the right to compete and win on a level playing field with other women. Such efforts also dishonor real advocates of gay rights, as well as the pioneers of women’s sports who worked so hard to let females enjoy and compete in sports previously restricted to men.
Rights for gay Americans like me have made incredible strides in a few short decades, when we faced true discrimination in the areas of military service, marriage, employment, and – in many quarters – general social acceptance. In my own case more than 30 years ago, I had to mask my sexuality to serve my country in the Marine Corps, before the advent of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and long before gay Americans were accepted fully in the military. That was real discrimination, and thankfully it was resolved fully across the uniformed services a decade ago. Now, thanks to the efforts of so many trailblazers over the past 60 years, gays enjoy full equality in the military, as well as in each of these other important societal realms.
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The same is true for women’s sports, where decades ago women were not allowed to compete in many athletic events open to men because they were not considered physically up for the stress of participating, and it took true pioneers to change that for the benefit of society.
My late mother was a world-class marathon runner, and a member of the U.S. women’s national team in the mid-1970’s – a time when women were not allowed to compete in that event in the Olympics or in other marquee long-distance events. In fact, another top woman runner of that era, Katherine Switzer, was attacked and nearly pushed to the ground by a race official when she was discovered running covertly in the 1967 Boston Marathon, when women were barred from that storied event. Surrounded by a few burly male friends, she continued the race and made it across the finish line. Her story spread nationally and led to the event admitting women five years later.
Several years after that, my mother and other top female and male long-distance runners formed the International Runners’ Committee that worked hard to break down barriers for women in long distance running competitions. Thanks to their efforts and those in other countries, the Olympic Games added a women’s marathon event in 1984, which American Joan Benoit won that year, along with a 3,000-meter race. Over the next decade-plus, the Olympics added the three remaining long-distance events, bringing women to full parity with men in track-and-field racing worldwide.
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In 1984, the women’s record in the marathon stood at 2 hours 24 minutes, and the men’s record was a full 16 minutes below that at 2 hours 8 minutes. How would Joan Benoit, my mother, and other pioneers like Katherine Switzer feel when they achieved their hard-fought goal of allowing women to compete in the Olympic marathon, only to have several biological male second-stringers limber up at the starting line with the best women runners in the world, intending to run ten-plus minutes faster than the rest of the field simply by declaring themselves to be women and taking a few hormone treatments? It would be absurd on its face, and true pioneers of women’s equality in sports like my mother would oppose it 100 percent.
The transparent unfairness of this trans-sport two-step is not hard for Americans to grasp – no matter their gender or sexual identity. Asking transgender biological male athletes to stick to competing in men’s sports instead of women’s sports, and to shower in men’s locker rooms, not women’s, does not represent discrimination.
Transgender advocates who say otherwise dishonor those who have made monumental strides in recent decades both on true gay rights and on forging a level playing field for women in competitive sports.
