I just got done watching a video of one of our state senators (it seemed impolite to find out which one) using some dubious statements about the genders of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis to rationalize letting transgender girls participate in girls’ sports.
(My wife is sitting here reading the Hebrew, which says, in Genesis 1:27, that ‘male’ and ‘female’ were created simultaneously. Take that for what it’s worth.)
This is yet another instance of how the whole discussion about trans athletes competing in sports has devolved into comedy, because it ignores the whole point of competitive sports.
The issue isn’t whether there are many genders, or just two; or whether we should blur the distinction between sex (a biological attribute) and gender (a linguistic concept); but whether, if Adam and Eve were boxers, they should be placed in the same category.
They should be placed in different categories, but not because of any biological or cultural labels. They should be in different categories because Adam would win every time, and put Eve in danger while doing it. Also, no one who happened to be around would have any interest in watching a ‘contest’ whose outcome is completely predictable in advance.
These are the same reasons why a full-grown Adam shouldn’t box against a pre-adolescent Abel, even though they’re both males.
Note that the simplest, most Solomon-like way to settle the question would be to make this offer:
If there is really no difference between boys and girls, or between men and women, where athletics are concerned, let’s do away with categories altogether. Everyone in a sport will have to compete against everyone else in that sport.
Oh, and while we’re at it, we would stop segregating athletes by age, and weight, and so on. The playing field would be wide open, if not particularly level. And we could try to level it by handicapping individuals, rather than segregating them into categories.
The thing is, some small number of people would go along with this, and those are the people who would accept Solomon’s offer to cut the baby in half.
The rest, having admitted that there are good reasons for segregating athletes that have nothing to do with how they ‘identify’, but with how they match up physically (in terms of size, strength, and skill), would find it much harder to defend the idea that how you feel about yourself should have anything to do with who you face in an arena.
Of course, having silly discussions about serious issues isn’t a phenomenon limited to sports. We routinely have ridiculous conversations about schools, for example, which lead to ridiculous conclusions, because those conversations have become completely detached from first principles, i.e., what are we trying to do, and why?
But any discussion about competitive sports that doesn’t begin by revisiting the question of why we have them in the first place is destined to end up being comedic, rather than substantive — even when the results will be used to determine public policy.
