Responding for the Trans Athlete Debate
“Our season ended because the opposing team was allowed to put a boy in as the pitcher on a girls’ softball team.”
So wrote Kendall Kotzmacher about her experience as a collegiate athlete. You can read her whole story here: https://www.foxnews.com/
I have several thoughts.
1) It is important that we refer to transgender girls as females, not boys. Calling people by their chosen or legal name is proper in all situations. And there are many illustrations of this that do not involve sex or gender. It is a common courtesy. To do otherwise, as this (Christian) girl does throughout this testimony, is an act of disrespect and a denial of human dignity.
2) Transgender people in general pose many practical challenges to familiar social situations. Sports is one example. There are others, including the workplace. If we put our minds to it, we can create a long list of such situations that require practical workable solutions. Athletics is one of them, at all levels. Administrators must deal with these to create opportunity as well as fairness.
A similar situation (but without the gender issue) occurred this fall when several NFL football players were cut from their teams and wanted to return to college because they still had eligibility. But their age, experience, and skill gave them an unfair advantage over younger, less experience college players. It was quite a stir.
3) Most importantly, we must understand and support people dealing with gender dysphoria. Trans people are not trying to trick others or secure some advantage, in sports, or bathrooms, or anywhere. It is not a strategy to win a contest. It is real people dealing with real issues in the real world. Which raises this question: without belittling the loss of a state championship, we have to ask: who, in this softball episode, is the victim? The person born with mixed up gender or the person who lost a ball game?
4) Finally, the athlete who complained about losing a ball game transferred schools … to a “Christian” college where, she assumes, men are men and women are women and there is no confusion or transition. She strongly implies that hers is the “Christian” position. But how, then, does a Christian respond to gender dysphoria? What is a Christian to do when he or she becomes aware of their gender identity and how it deviates from the social norm? What understanding or empathy or mere kindness are we to extend to somebody navigating such a lonely road of identity and isolation (especially if it is somebody we know and love)? Or more powerfully, What would Jesus do and say?
Dwight A Moody
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