Transgender Athletes Will Compete On Women's Sports Teams in Idaho This Fall!

 

My good friend, federal Judge David Nye, had the unfortunate task recently of deciding whether to issue an injunction of an Idaho law, recently passed, that prohibits biological men from competing against women in athletic competitions. I think this was one of those occasions in which a judge felt compelled to enforce a different law that appears to mandate allowing biological men who identify as women to compete against women.

A recent challenge to that decision by a three-judge panel agreed with Judge Nye: Idaho may not pass a law prohibiting biological men, who identify as transgender, from competing against biological females.  

The decision will certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where I believe it will be overturned.  There is absolutely no reason to allow biological men to compete against biological women. 

The only merit to the lawsuit that I can see is that the law apparently allows anyone to challenge whether a competitor is actually a woman.  That would mean that anyone could walk up to a biological female athlete and demand that person prove she is a woman, by making her undergo various "sex verification" tests.  That part of the law should be overturned, as this provision is needlessly humiliating.  A birth certificate or similar proof should suffice.

The case in question involves Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student at Boise State University who wishes to compete against women in cross country.  I do not know how fit Lindsay Hecox is, but as a man who competed against men in cross country for 10 years, I can say this is wrong on many, many levels.

If I had decided to compete as a woman, and been allowed to do so during my competitive days, I would have been the world champion in women's cross country, 800 meters, 1500 meters, 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters, and the marathon.  I was not anywhere near that level in competition against men. 

There is no rational reason to allow biological men to compete in women's athletic competitions. In cross country in particular, one biological man on a woman's team, because of the way the event is scored, could make an 80-point difference in a team's place.  In that sport, you add the top 5 placings runners on one team.  1 point for first place, 2 points for second place, etc.  In a large race, your last person might be 80th place or worse.  

When you put a transgender male in the race, you would be discarding the huge score of your slowest woman, and replacing it with 1 point.  Adding one man in a race would turn the scores of teams upside-down.

Let's hope the U.S. Supreme Court does the right thing and stops this nonsense now, before Lindsay Hecox runs his first race for the Boise State women's cross country team.