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The storm over transgender individuals in women’s sports is exposing elements of inexcusable hurt and willing ignorance that invariably show up when emotion laps reason.
The losers in this fevered rhetoric are trans kids, who are subjected to bullying, shunning and violence that leads, as it only can, to mental anguish. Successful attempts at suicide by trans kids have spiked to twice that of cisgender youths, according to data compilations from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But concern over marginalizing young trans kids is muted in all this. Instead, those who would exclude trans individuals have hijacked the word “fair” in rationalizing the rank discrimination they promote, with most unaware the number of trans athletes in sport is in the microscopic range.
A 2022 report by UCLA’s law school estimated that of 332 million Americans, only 1.3 million adults and 300,000 teenagers identify as transgender.
While privacy laws prevent an exact count, medical physicist and noted researcher of trans issues, Joanna Harper, says she’d be surprised if 100 public school trans students play varsity sport. Some 3.4 million American teen girls are in athletics.
The National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education and the American Psychological Association support trans inclusion. In its 2020 Bostock decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said discrimination that’s based on sexual orientation and gender identity violates the Civil Rights Act.