Culture Wars/Current Controversies

Tulsi Gabbard introduces bill that ties Title IX protections for female athletes to ‘biological sex’

By on • ( Leave a comment )
I see two separate issues here. On one hand, I don’t think anyone has a human right or civil right to have their sports leagues funded by the federal government, particularly considering that both sports and education are crony-capitalist/state-capitalist institutions as much as anything. As I said elsewhere in response to this story.
“More hate soon to come Tulsi’s way. Look for “anarchists” to demand a “human right” to have their sports leagues funded by the federal government, probably including a piece from Noam Chomsky or Kevin Carson on how centralized state funding of intergender sports leagues is somehow a net victory for anti-statism. Actually, sports and education are two of the most “state-capitalist” or “crony-capitalist” industries there are, alongside banking, energy, armaments, technology, and agriculture.”

On the other hand, I think sports leagues should be voluntary communities that are capable of deciding their own standards. I saw an article recently about a (biological) female football player at some university or other. I tend to be of the view of “whoever gets the job done.” From what I understand (maybe I’m wrong), the objection to having transwomen in women’s sports is that it is physically dangerous and unfair competition-wise because transwomen still have male levels of strength.

I’ve heard a counterargument that says the hormones taken by transwomen actually reduce their levels of strength which reduces the strength differentials between biological genders. No idea if that’s true. Also, biological males and females can vary a lot in terms of size and strength, in which case the solution might be to do it the way they do in boxing with different weight/size divisions.
I used to teach at a college that seemed to have the most convenient solution to the bathroom issues. One for biological males, one for biological females, or at least presenting males and females, and one that was “come one, come all” or gender-neutral.
Title IX is a somewhat subjective legal provision. It’s been used to address everything from date rape to admitting women to traditionally male military academies. I can understand concerns about it being abused.

These kinds of controversies are the natural consequence of having the state involved in every aspect of society, particularly one as large and diverse as ours. Every issue becomes a political issue so of course, every group wants to be sure their interests are represented. I played Little League baseball in rural Virginia in the 1970s. In the midst of our redneck, fundamentalist townships, we had black and white kids, boys and girls, some gay kids (in retrospect), and even a hemophiliac kid all on the same teams, with one of the team sponsors being a cross-dressing biological woman gas station owner who presented as male, and no one seemed to have a problem with each other.

By William Jennings, USA Today

Outgoing Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is facing backlash after she joined Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin to introduce legislation specifying that Title IX protections for female athletes are based on “biological sex.”

The text of the bill introduced Thursday calls for Title IX compliance to be “determined on the basis of biological sex as determined at birth by a physician.” Title IX, which forbids sex-based discrimination in any school receiving federal funds, is best known for ensuring that women’s college sports programs receive equal support – and a federal judge recently applied it to rule a transgender woman could not be kept off a women’s sports team.

READ MORE

Categories: Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Men and Women

Leave a Reply