By Mark W. Fowler, J.D., M.D.

The purpose of athletic competition is to sort out and reward effort, teamwork, and ability between competitors. To measure the athletes or teams accurately, we attempt to level the field. We modify the starting points in an oval track. In golf, we adjust the tee box for women and seniors and consider a golfer’s handicap. In gambling, a point spread is established to make the bets fair. We limit boxers and wrestlers to competition in their weight class. Among children, we contain competition to teams of the same age. We do this to control for differences in physical attributes that make competition unfair.

In boxing and mixed martial arts, we limit competition based on weight. We do this for reasons of safety and fairness, based on physical attributes that negate training and ability. If a man wished to compete in women’s mixed martial arts, no one in his/her right mind would allow that. Obviously, this is because men are stronger, have more cardiac and lung capacity, are stronger, and have bigger bones and longer limbs. These things are measurable and widely accepted. In short, we constrain competition to similar competitors.

If a man believed himself to be a bantamweight when in fact he was a heavyweight, no sporting authority would give any consideration to that belief, no matter how sincerely held.

Let us change the facts and reconsider the effect of a firmly held belief on the part of a competitor. If a competitor claimed to suffer from agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), no authority would require the competition to be held in secret even if the disability were medically documented to affect her performance. The same is true if the competitor were to have performance anxiety. If the competitor could get a psychiatrist to opine that the competitor would sufferable emotional damage if he lost, or would suffer an exacerbation of bipolar depression if he did not finish first, no sports authority would hear this claim and act on it.

These concepts are so intuitive and right and fair that only a progressive would fail to understand them.

It behooves us then to look at one more example. Consider a biological man who competes as a man in the sport of swimming. He is mediocre as a competitor, ranked 462nd in men’s swimming after competing for three years as a man. Over the offseason he decides he is really a woman and begins to compete as a woman. Whether he has or hasn’t had hormone therapy or surgery is irrelevant. For all of his life he has acted as a man. He is bigger, stronger, and has more lung and cardiac capacity than anyone in women’s swimming. And as a consequence, he outperforms his closest competitor by many seconds. And seconds in swimming is a lifetime. Thus, he becomes the number one women’s swimmer in college athletics.

As a result of his “belief,” he has won many competitions except one, when he swam against another transgender swimmer, and the outcome of that race is under question. What is at stake here is not providing a level playing field. What is at issue is damaging this competitor’s self-esteem. Failure to allow this competitor to compete would be deemed discriminatory. But this is no more discriminatory than forbidding a man from boxing a woman; forbidding boxers from fighting below their class; or forbidding 20-year-olds from competing against eight-year-olds.

How or why this peculiarity should prevail and trump common sense is never stated. To question this peculiarity is to invite condemnation as “transphobic.” To point out the obvious unfairness to biological women is to invite the fiercest calumny. But this raises an interesting question: If this one competitor’s right to self-esteem is paramount, isn’t it discriminatory and sexist to disregard the self-esteem of the other competitors?

No one is arguing that gender dysphoric individuals be ostracized, mistreated, or discriminated against in employment, commerce, healthcare, etc. They have sufficient troubles as it is. But to be equal before the law, as they should be, requires that they and those against whom they compete be treated equally in the face of common sense.