When the dividing lines limit and oppress
Equality for women in sports followed decades of struggle. Fifty years ago, President Nixon signed Title IX, which banned discrimination in higher education. This opened doors to previously all-male classes and led to many more female teams and scholarships.
The result is a massive increase in women’s sports.
Some trans activists are challenging aspects of Title IX, specifically its implicit acknowledgment of biological difference. And supporters, not least the Biden administration, say transgender girls should be permitted on girls’ sports teams. They have pushed for a federal Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, education, employment and credit.
Only that’s not equality, it’s something else. Forced endorsement of other people’s fantasies, combined with a complete takeover of women’s sports by men calling themselves trans women.
The legal rationale for keeping women’s sports sex-segregated would fall away. “We are bringing a male body into a female sport,” Dr. Coleman said. “Once you cross that line, there’s no more rationale for women’s sport.”
Some trans activists and academics welcome that. Nathan Palmer, a lecturer at Georgia Southern University, wrote in Sociology in Focus: “Nature loves diversity, but humans love simplicity. Separating males from females may be socially useful, but when the dividing lines limit and oppress, we have to acknowledge they are social constructions.”
Limit and oppress whom?
If they succeed in putting an end to women’s sports there will be very few women in sports. Apparently that’s the goal.
So if there were trans sports categories, I wonder if they’d be ok with having non-trans athletes compete, since they’re so very pro-inclusivity. I doubt it.
Interesting list. I would not argue with this list. No one should deny employment (as long as it isn’t a reserved list for omen), credit, etc, to anyone based on whether they are wearing a dress or trousers.
They didn’t mention the ones that women are fighting against – single space shelters, rape crisis centers, bathrooms, prisons, sports…the ones where women are vulnerable to men. If a man rents an apartment while identifying as a woman, it is only a problem for women if it is a women-only space. In the past, that was the stuff of madcap comedies. Now it appears we are supposed to accept men anywhere they want to go, even in women-only spaces.
As for killing Title IX, the conservatives have been wanting to do that for decades. So who is it joining with the conservatives? In other words, it is always possible a group of progressives (I use that word with irony in the terms of TAs) will find some overlap with conservative ideas.