“Can we finally stop talking about trans sports?” read the headline in the February 11, 2025, Los Angeles Times. Of course this was followed by a column talking about — you guessed it — trans sports. So the answer is no, we have to keep talking about trans sports for the same reason that people keep climbing mountains: because they are there.
Four years ago I ended my ADR column on trans sports by positing that “the case of transgender female athletes may pose one of the ultimate tests for diversity advocates because it requires the difficult weighing of competing legitimate equity concerns, with no simple win-win solution in sight.” I illustrated that conclusion by positing two hypothetical situations.
In one situation, one of my daughters had trained for years to become a modestly-achieving track athlete and had finally, barely made her high school relay team. She had also talked to me about her track friend Benjamin. Then one day she came home distraught because Benjamin had become Beverly and had bumped my hard-striving, physically-limited daughter from her relay slot. While fully respecting Beverly’s sense of gender identity, I was upset by my daughter’s pain and by the physical inequity of the situation.
Then I reversed the hypothetical circumstances. Beverly, formerly Benjamin, was now my daughter. She came home upset after being told that she could not participate in her school’s women’s athletics. I was upset by my daughter’s pain and by that rigid, discriminatory, and arbitrary administrative exclusion.
Well, that was then. Now the hypothetical has become real in my own hometown of Riverside, California. Ironically it is occurring at a high school named Martin Luther King, Jr. Here’s the situation.
Two transgender girls — one a pole vaulter, one a runner – joined the King track team. This occurred in the wake of a presidential election in which the Trump campaign made anti-transgender themes central to its efforts. This included a dramatically effective ad proclaiming “Kamala Harris is for they/them; President Trump is for you.” The ad ran more than 30,000 times in every swing state and during NASCAR, NFL, and college football telecasts. Neither the Harris campaign nor Democrats in general could come up with an effective response. Nor have diversity advocates made a significant impact in the public square with their esoteric proclamations about gender fluidity.
Which brings me back to King high school. Polarization has set in. Students are coming to school wearing clashing T-shirts: “SAVE GIRL’S SPORTS” vs. “WE’RE ALL EQUAL.” One school board member has called for banning transgender girls from women’s sports teams (California law supports such transgender participation). When a cisgender girl was bumped from the school’s cross-country team in favor of the transgender girl for a major competition, her parents filed a Title IX complaint. The heated atmosphere proved too much for the transgender pole vaulter, who quit the team. However, the 5’4”, 120-pound transgender runner continued despite the turbulent situation.
So what should diversity advocates do in regard to the transgender women in sports controversy? I suppose one could stake out a simple for-or-against position, backed by diversity buzz words like equity and inclusivity. However, in this situation platitudes merely amplify polarization. Dueling bumper stickers don’t lead to constructive conversations.
My current column series is about renewing diversity. So let me suggest a three-part strategy for diversity advocates, drawing on what we do best. We should vigorously defend the basic humanity of all people, including opposition to the dehumanization of both transgender and cisgender female athletes. We should admit complexity, not lurch into simplicity, when conflicting equity situations arise. Finally, we should try to develop better inclusivity lenses for addressing those situations.
Consider the Curb Cut Effect. When cities began retooling street corners to create greater access for those in wheelchairs, there was opposition, including accusations of wasting taxpayer money. Then came the recognition that others, including the non-disabled, benefited from curb cuts. People pushing baby carriages and grocery carts. Seniors who had problems stepping down from curbs. Support grew; opposition virtually disappeared.
This led to the Curb Cut Effect idea that you can make equity-related changes more sustainable and broadly acceptable if they meet two criteria. First, that more people benefit from the change, not just one single target group. Second, that nobody suffers significant losses.
Remember back when those opposing marriage equality argued that it would undermine the institution of marriage? It didn’t. There was no resource loss, since there are an unlimited supply of marriage certificates. Comparably, military recruitment regularly falls short of its goals, so it benefits from having a transgender-expanded recruiting pool. As 1964 Republican presidential candidate, conservative Barry Goldwater, once intoned while supporting the idea of gays in the military, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.”
But the resource situation is different when it comes to sports. Only four people can make a relay team. There are only eight lanes in a competitive swimming pool. This opens the door for the argument that transgender women are taking opportunities away from cisgender female athletes. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) noted that last year there were fewer than ten transgender women in college sports (of 520,000 competitors). But even it the numbers are small, they are still real.
So diversity advocates need to face the fact that the issue of transgender women in sports creates a Curb Cut conundrum. The issue calls for nuanced thinking, not knee-jerk rigidity and bumper sticker platitudes. Maximizing inclusivity requires balancing a multiplicity of sometimes-conflicting needs, concerns, and experiences.
We can start with the recognition that not all sports are alike. In some sports women and men already compete together: auto racing and equestrian, for example. We have other sports where men and women compete separately, but with exceptions. My wife has a niece who kicked field goals and extra points for her high school men’s football team. College women’s basketball teams sometimes practice against male squads.
Until recently the NCAA went by the eligibility rules adopted by each sport’s national organization. However, in the wake of Trump’s executive orders declaring that there are two immutable genders and banning transgender women from female athletics, the NCAA complied. Not enough, roared the state of Texas, which filed suit against the NCAA for failing to “sex screen” women before they can participate in organized athletics. (What about intersex youth — those born with non-standard anatomical or sex traits?)
Nonetheless, a sport-by-sport analysis may provide opportunities for muting polarized screaming and developing common ground. This won’t resolve the entire women’s sports conundrum, but at least it may help us move forward. I’m not suggesting that we pursue mushy middle positions, but rather that we develop alternative lenses that circumvent stereotypes, preclude shouting matches, and contribute to bridge-building conversations.
Certainly this approach will not eliminate all anti-trans dehumanization and scapegoating. Transgender-related information is disappearing from federal government websites, impeding the pursuit of health equity. Although a recent Gallup poll reported that 58% of Americans support the right of transgender people to serve in the military, President Trump exercised his electoral “mandate” to ban and order the removal of all transgender service members. Estimates range from 1,300 to 15,000 transgender troops out of 2 million.
Yet offering new perspectives may help expand inclusivity by recognizing, clarifying, and attempting to balance competing equity positions. In the process, we must insist that all human beings – I repeat, all – be treated with humanity. We should pursue the transformation of shouting matches into conversations about what artist/author Art Spiegelman has called “the reconciliation of unbridgeable differences.” That is a bridge-building effort that diversity advocates must continue to make.
He also edited the four-volume Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia (2013).
- Renewing Diversity #6: Trans Talk –by Carlos Cortés - March 9, 2025
- Renewing Diversity #5: Wrestling with History –by Carlos Cortés - February 10, 2025
- Renewing Diversity #4: Pivoting to the Future – by Carlos Cortés - January 13, 2025