Female athletes are as capable as male athletes | Opinion | kansan.com – The University Daily Kansan

The Kansas Senate passed a bill last month that would prevent transgender women from competing in girls sports in public schools from the elementary level to the state collegiate level. Kansas is the eighteenth state to propose a ban on transgender athletes competing in girls sports.

Labeled pro-girl and pro-women, proponents of the Kansas bill and similar bills claim that these actions protect female athletes.

However, I think this is one of the most covert misogynistic pieces of legislation ever written.

The bill, also called the Fairness in Womens Sports Act, requires teams to designate themselves as males, females or mixed, solely based on biological sex. The bill then explicitly states that sports designated for females, women or girls shall not be open to members of the male sex. If a person or organization sues on grounds of athletic opportunity deprivation and prevails on that claim, it is entitled to a broad remedy of monetary damages, including for any psychological, emotional and physical harm suffered, reasonable attorney fees and costs and any other appropriate relief.

Labeling transgender women and girls as members of the male sex is transphobic. Transgender folks are already at risk for discrimination because there are no laws in the state of Kansas that protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations.

This bill would allow for schools to freely refuse to recognize students gender identity, who already experience higher rates of suicide, bullying and feelings of isolation at school.

School should be a safe place for all students. Recognizing students' differences especially those whose identities put them at riskis a key part of supporting students.

This legislation implies that there is no physical way that any woman born female could beat anyone born male in any sport under any circumstances. It continues the decades-long trend of underestimating female athletes by implying that they are fundamentally weaker.

The bill makes no express mention of people born female competing in male sports teams, only choosing to target those born male competing in women's and girls sports teams. Additionally, there has been almost no discourse around people born female competing in boys sports. Most of the bills passed focus solely on people born male competing in girls sports.

States such as Oklahoma, whose bill is titled the Save Womens Sports Act, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and other states only target transgender peoples participation in girls sports only with little to no mention of transgender participation in boys sports.

This is further indication that the ideas behind the bills are sexist and discredit female athletes. Legislators seem to have little to no concern for transgender males competing in boys sports further implying that legislators believe female athletes are inferior to male athletes.

Legislatures do not see people born female as threats to athletes born male because of traditionally sexist attitudes that state that women are weaker than men from the moment they are born.

This legislation also portrays people born male as predisposed athletic machines who would beat any woman simply because they have one X and one Y chromosome.

Saying this is offensive and simply untrue.

In reality, men and women have different strengths, such as women excelling more than men in endurance sports and men excelling in strength-related sports.

Further, Dr. Josha D. Safer, an endocrinologist at Mount Sinai Beth Israel with over 20 years of experience and the president of the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health, said it best: A persons genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance and have not been used in elite competition for decades.

People born male are not automatically better at sports in the same way that people born female are not automatically better at cooking. Pushing these ideas just serves to reinforce offensive stereotypes.

Though the presence of testosterone can boost athletic performance, the differences in testosterone levels in males and females do not show up until after puberty.

Therefore, banning elementary-aged transgender women from competing in sports is unproductive and does not protect women (who, by the way, dont need your protection). It only serves to further alienate and bully children who are already among one of the highest-risk groups in the country.

Transgender youths are predisposed to experience higher levels of physical violence, sexual violence, discrimination and mental health struggles than their cisgender counterparts.

Other proponents of the bill have argued that transgender female athletes have a biological advantage after puberty due to the presence of testosterone in transgender women and that their athletic presence ensures that the playing field for cisgender women would not be equal.

However, 94% of transgender women have less than two nanomoles of testosterone per liter when on hormone replacement therapy, congruent with 95% of cisgender women having less than two nanomoles of testosterone per liter. So, where is the competitive advantage?

If legislatures really cared about female sportsmanship, I would encourage them to follow and engage with professional womens sports. Or I would encourage them to allocate more funding to women and girls in sports, to raise awareness for sexual assault and harassment in sports or invest in campaigns to encourage women and girls, cisgender and transgender, to get involved in sports. However, no legislatures have taken such action.

Their worry for womens sports is merely a facade for underlying sexism and transphobia.

These bills do not help women. Instead, they grossly alienate transgender children and belittle the work that female athletes put in nearly every day.

Allow transgender girls to have a childhood beyond discrimination and stop underestimating female athletes.

Read more here:
Female athletes are as capable as male athletes | Opinion | kansan.com - The University Daily Kansan