The transgender “controversy,” for want of a better word, has seemed to me very much a tempest in a teapot, an issue that’s resolvable by basic free market forces and basic courtesy, and that has been used as a source of deliberately excessive outrage. And, given that it involves deeply personal matters, feelings, decisions, and the like, the libertarian in me defaults to a “live and let live” detachment. Finding happiness is difficult enough for people who aren’t in the sort of turmoil that those who feel they’re in the wrong body do, so far be it from me to look for ways to make the latter’s pursuit more problematic than it already is.
Transgenderism has, as is so typical nowadays, fallen prey to binary-ism. On one side, we find advocates who proclaim that transgendered people have the exclusive right to declare their gender, irrespective of any impact it has on all others. On the other hand, we find critics who dismiss it all as mental illness. This bipolarity tends to crowd out legitimate questions and legitimate concerns, unfortunately, with the Manicheans and other dualists reflexively lobbing personal attacks at each other and at anyone who isn’t all-in on their side of the divide.
This doesn’t make the questions go away, though, and one area where they are particularly concerning is in the realm of athletics. Consider this recent story about a transgender weightlifter. Laurel Hubbard, born male, transitioned to female, and is now competing against other women in Olympic lifting (a sport that consists of two movements: the clean-and-jerk and the snatch-and-press). Hubbard easily won the competition.
Another recent example is that of Fallon Fox, a trans mixed-martial-arts fighter who’s competing against women.
What’s the problem, one might ask? If someone has undergone gender reassignment, and has been living biologically (including via hormone replacement) as a woman, why should she be denied competition against other women?
The problem I see, and I fully aver that I am no expert, is that a woman who grew up (and in particular, went through puberty) as a man benefited from years or decades of the effects of male hormones on physiology. Size, bone structure, muscle mass, muscle density, body mass distribution… all these things are enhanced by testosterone and other male hormones. Thus, even after hormone therapy and reassignment, a trans woman is likely to have a structural advantage over her competitors. This should violate your sense of fairness, and if it does not, ask yourself if you are letting your desire to be on the “correct” side of a binary divide cloud your judgement.
Now, as a free-marketeer, that’s pretty much as far as I’m willing to go. It should ultimately be up to the regulatory arms of the various athletic organizations to decide how they want to handle the question of trans athletes, and it should ultimately be up to the public that consumes athletic competition as entertainment to conclude if those decisions are satisfactory. But, not wanting to impose my opinion by force doesn’t mean I can’t express it.
For a different perspective, lets hop into the WABAC machine to 1976. Consider the East German Olympic women’s swim team, which destroyed its competition via heavy steroid use, or other athletes such as shot-putters, who epitomized the concept of better living through chemistry. The doping scandals of that era remain a dark cloud in the world of competitive sport, and by-and-large society has rejected the idea of athletes enhancing themselves via performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Yet, isn’t a decade or more of male-level hormones the equivalent of PEDs for female athletes? If male-to-female transgenders become accepted in the realm of women’s athletics, how can those born as women consider themselves on a level playing field?
Sure, sure, some advocates for the transgendered will reflexively denounce me as transphobic, an ad hominem I wholly reject. Just as it is not racist to discuss issues pertaining to race, it is not transphobic to merely discuss such matters or raise logical concerns.
As I noted above, I’m not an expert, but one does not need an advanced degree in a relevant field to mix some basic awareness of human biological development with some common sense and conclude that there’s a problem here. And, before someone screams “rights,” it is worth noting that no one has a “right” to be included in an athletic competition or sporting event. As I noted above, the regulatory arms of the sanctioning bodies get to set the rules, and there should be both common sense and respect for the other athletes who are seeking to compete. In short, you should be free to pursue your happiness, but you can’t require that the world be changed to guarantee it.
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