Missouri’s state government is hearing a bill that would limit transgender high school student-athletes to competing based on the gender found on their birth certificate.
House Joint Resolution 82 would propose a state constitutional amendment requiring students to compete based on their gender at birth. That’s a response to growing conversation about transgender student-athlete participation. Missouri’s House of Representatives heard the resolution this week, while a similar bill will be heard by the state’s senate in the future.
Missouri’s KSHB reports that Representative Robert Ross sponsored the bill. Concerned Women for America spoke in support of the bill, while others were opposed. KSHB quotes former Kansas City Blazers swim coach Veronica Malone, who called the bill discriminatory toward transgender athletes.
Conversation has been growing about transgender athletes, particularly athletes born as biological men who identify as women. Earlier this month, high school athletes in Connecticut filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s policy, under which a transgender athlete won state titles and set state records while competing in girls track events.
A wholesale policy like Missouri is hearing would be different than the policies currently used by USA Swimming. USA Swimming follows the International Olympic Committee policy, which allows transgender women to compete in women’s events, provided they regulate their testosterone levels for a specific period of time before competing in women’s events.
Since everybody seems to be about “fair” these days,…what’s fair about physical women having to compete against physical men??? Let’s see what happens if the transgenders try to compete in golf tournaments…which tee will they play from…
It’s a very tricky topic to tackle. I read somewhere that maybe the solution could be having an open gender and a female gender. As a biological female I cant imagine the difficulties of being a transgender athlete, but I can imagine training as hard as you can only to be beaten by someone with a biological advantage, something you could never beat. There needs to be some sort of decision to be fair to to transgender athletes, and to ensure that biological females continue to have a sense of fairness in their sport.
I’ve always felt that there should be two divisions based on your biological sex, if you’re born XX you go in the women’s division everyone else is in the open division, regardless of how you identify. That seems pretty fair to me, as it preserves women’s athletics, allows everyone to compete, and doesn’t add any other divisions.
Maybe it’s time to have a third division – transgender athletes -and let them compete against each other. This is already done for athletes with disabilities.
I doubt anyone except their parents would want to watch those competitions.
I work in education equity. I once had a case dealing with a male wrestler who felt that they were discriminated against because he and other grapplers in his weight class would have had to wrestle a female athlete. The coach of the team that he was on, as well as the coaches of the other male athletes in the league, believed that it was right to have the male wrestler forfeit the meet against the female wrestler for fear of hurting the female athlete [and likely old stereotypes]. This decision not only hurt the male athlete for seeding purposes at champs (due to forfeited meets), but also the female athlete because she had no real competition over the course… Read more »
Exactly. Err on the side of caution for ALL the athletes involved. Last I checked, theres very few transgender people and even fewer transgender athletes. So if governments pass legislation that give those few more rights in regards to who they compete against, they are directly discriminating against a larger population of people, those being people who compete in their natural born gender.
*gets popcorn and watches comments…
This is absolutely discriminatory against transgender athletes. But is that not the whole point of differentiating between men’s and women’s sports? To “discriminate” against those with an innate physiological advantage?
I think every sport attempts to segregate the participants into different groups based on various factors including age, weight, skill level and sex. Reason is that they are trying to make it ‘fair’ for all the participants. I keep seeing this claim made that its discrimination but I really don’t see you explaining why or how that is. The other side claims the male to female transgender athlete has a definitive physical advantage over those born female. I have yet see this argument be shown to be incorrect.
I think my comment was misunderstood. I am in favor of this policy, as it is exactly in line with the same “discrimination” that occurs between mens and womens athletics every day. Call it a dirty word if you like, but this kind of “discrimination” (yes, even against transgendered athletes) is obviously necessary for a level playing field
So, because one guy turns to be a girl, every other non trans girl has to suffer a disadvantage against that person? Makes no sense.
Lot of Fox News watching going on with those first 4 comments. I grew up in Missouri- diversity wasn’t much of thing there. I enjoy the “choice” comment. For those that I have met that have gone thru that realization of who they are inside it was TOTALLY the same as how they choose what they want for lunch. I am sure they are making this choice as well just to beat some girls. Though I have met plenty of girls faster than boys…I am sure the crew above would be pissed if a girl switched to male and still beat one of their swimmers too (but would brag about it if it was THEIR swimmer they coached that transitioned… Read more »
Whats with the Fox News comment?
How is the weather up on that high horse? The United States has come a long way in providing equal sporting opportunity for women. Allowing biological men that identify as female trans to participate in athletics against women is directly counter to the progress that has been made. By your logic, everybody should just compete in one giant pool and may the best person win. Of course, the Olympics would then look like ancient Greece with only men.
….And the 2024 800 meter Gold goes to Haley S. ( formerly Hank S.). Silver goes to Katie Ledecky. Hmmmmm
Millennial here. This decision seems to be made to protect female swimmers – half the swimming population who have put in the hard work and deserve fair competition (as do all our athletes). I absolutely sympathize with those that are trans, but more checks and balances need to be put in place to ensure fair competition. I can’t say I know what that looks like but until then this is clearly the most fair as a whole.