By Sarah Holliday

The conflict: Should trans-identifying men be allowed to compete in women’s sports?

The solution: Well, that’s the part society is trying to figure out.

One group is fighting for trans-identifying men to stay out of women’s sports entirely. They cite the unfair disadvantage, as these are not women but biological men who are supremely stronger and faster than their female competitors. Yet, there is also the group of individuals who claim that keeping men out of women’s sports is discrimination. “You are denying that trans people exist,” you may hear them say.

The battle over girls’ sports is ongoing, but lately, there have been some efforts to compromise. The Swimming World Cup, which is set to take place October 6-8 in Berlin, Germany has suggested an “open” category at their events, where any trans-identifying athlete can compete freely. Yet, the competition is this week, and no one has signed up for this special category. It suggests something powerful about the real motives of the Left: It’s not about inclusivity. It’s about destroying women’s sports.

This was an honest accommodation, and trans-identifying swimmers chose not to take it. Moreover, this was a compromise that allowed them to self-identify, one that allows trans-identifying athletes to compete alongside people from their own community and acknowledges that “they exist,” for lack of a better phrase. It’s also a compromise that allows women who have trained their whole life to compete against other women. To most observers, it strikes a perfect balance: No woman would have to compete against a biological man, and no trans-identifying athlete was banned from competing. Nonetheless, it received backlash from the very people this compromise sought to please.

The Swimming World Cup is not the only event stuck in a no-win situation. World Aquatics is another group that started including an open category specifically for trans-identifying athletes, which has also had no takers. As Breitbart’s Dylan Gwinn wrote, “Trans athletes bent on making a political statement will likely fail to see an open category as the type of political validation they seek for their cause.” He continued, “As for the trans athletes who want to compete in the women’s category because they want to win, well, they’re not going to be doing nearly as much winning when they’re swimming against people of their own gender.”

Gwinn concluded, “[T]he no-show by trans athletes at the Swimming World Cup — even after a specific category was opened for them — is revealing because it shows the trans athlete movement has nothing to do with access to sporting events and everything to do with political agendas.”

If it were about inclusivity, and the ability to compete, then the open category, logically, would suffice. But as Gwinn stated, this is about political agenda, and the political agenda is to make trans-identifying men feel validated by making real women — and anyone who is rightly concerned — the problem.

Athlete Ally, an LGBT activist group, claimed the notion “separate but equal” is “dangerous and damaging.” They told CNN a separate category was not only “hostile,” but that it “promotes further othering and alienation of transgender athletes who already face tremendous stigma and abuse.”

Additionally, Roanoke City Councilman Peter Volosin, a Democrat, has claimed it’s “selfish” for women to stand up for themselves" after the Roanoke College swim team banded together to fight this agenda in their own pool. For Volosin, if these women want to win, they “should be training harder.” But of course, it only takes a little research to recognize that no level of training is going to make a female’s biological makeup equal to a man’s. Arguably, that is the focal point for those who fight against the transgender movement — namely, that changing gender is impossible.

Riley Gaines, a former NCAA All-American swimmer and girls’ sports advocate, said Volosin’s comments were “ignorant, arrogant, and infuriating.” She continued, “Believe it or not, Peter, you don’t get to consent to mistreatment on behalf of women.” She emphasized how irrational it is for Volosin to blame the detriment of trans athletes’ mental health on women for “saying no to men” in women’s sports.

If creating a gender-neutral category isn’t what they want, then it would only seem fitting to assume nothing will satisfy the LGBT movement. Well, nothing short of continuing down the path of destroying the integrity of women’s sports, until the lines of biology are completely blurred and indistinguishable.

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.