Leave Trans People Alone: A Rant

Before we start: Be your best selves today in the comments. Empathetic, thoughtful, and kind. Show everyone grace. Thanks. —JVL

1. Begin Rant

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get pissed about the bullying of trans people.

Would you like to make the case that trans women should be excluded from women’s sports at elite levels under certain circumstances?

Fine. We can talk about this. We can go through it, case-by-case, and make prudential judgments so long as we all understand upfront that every single one of these examples is an edge case.

Is it okay for a 12-year-old cis-girl to play on a Little League baseball team that’s otherwise all boys? Yes. It happens all the time. No one cares.

Is it a good idea for a trans woman to fight in MMA? No. Combat sports have lots of rules in place to prevent them from becoming too dangerous: Weight classes; gloves; no small-digit manipulation or eye gouges. Having trans women compete against cis-women in combat sports crosses the boundary of an acceptable level of danger.¹

Literally every other “trans person in sports” question falls somewhere between these two poles. These cases are rare enough that we rarely need bright-line tests and strict rules. In almost every situation we can figure these things out and make reasonable accommodations that keep most of the parties happy enough and preserve everyone’s dignity.

It’s. Just. Sports. This isn’t life-and-death. Sports do not count for anything until you get the the level where money is on the line. Until then, the only thing going on in sports is character development. And the truth is that, in the unlikely event that you find yourself caught up in a situation in which a trans person is trying to be accommodated in your recreational sport, that’s an opportunity for character formation for everyone.

It’s a chance to learn wisdom, courage, compassion, honor, empathy, and charity.

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Maybe it won’t always be thus.

Many years ago I wrote a piece about trans women in sports and I worried about what would happen to Title IX if trans women started taking over Division I college scholarships.² Would such a development hurt the financial and educational prospects of biological women? It probably would. That would be a problem. We should be monitoring that situation.

Well guess what: It hasn’t happened.³ It turned out that the edge cases we saw many years ago are the same edge cases we see today. There has been no trans takeover. So until such time as trans women start taking scholarship slots that would have gone to cis-gendered women at the Division 1 level, or start crowding out roster spots on professional teams, can we stop perseverating about the “trans sports” problem?

Here’s what is happening at scale:

About 15,000 trans people who volunteered to serve their country—and are doing so honorably—are in the process of being kicked out of the military.

Suicide rates and suicidal ideation among both trans children and adults is heart-breakingly high.

And the Trump administration is trying to erase the existence of trans people in ways that are openly demeaning and mean-spirited.

Cases of trans-sports conflicts are so rare that you can probably name all three of them.⁴ Cases of trans folks—and especially kids—being bullied are so common that they don’t even register.

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Finding your place in the world is hard.

Even under the best of circumstances. If you’re a neurotypical kid with both parents at home and enough money to be comfortable, growing up is still hard.

If you’re different in any way—if you’re black, or autistic, or your parents split up; if you’re dyslexic, or you have a sibling with special needs, or you’re just kind of quirky—growing up is even harder.

As Don Draper once said: The universe is indifferent. No one cares about your struggles; everyone has problems of their own.

So why are some people determined to make the lives of trans kids harder?...