Bryan Fischer
Track and field shows the way on transgenderism
By Bryan Fischer
Athletic officials are flailing about trying to figure out how to handle the case of a possibly transgendered athlete, a teenager who has taken the world of women's track and field by storm.
The South African athlete, who claims to be a she and goes by the name of Caster Semenya, is suspected of being a biological male and has taken a gender test to confirm his/her sex. The results of these tests will be available soon.
In the rules of international competition, an athlete is only allowed to compete under his gender at birth.
Two things are significant here. One is that international governing athletic bodies, who can't afford to allow political correctness to trample on fairness in competition, freely and without apology discriminate on the basis of gender. If Semenya turns out to have been a boy all this time, he's out, whether he thinks he's a girl trapped in a man's body or not.
But if fairness and justice make such "discrimination" not just appropriate but essential in athletic competition, why should not society make similar distinctions elsewhere?
And why do transgender activists allow track and field officials to get away with such horrible discrimination without a peep of protest? Where is the outrage from the transgendered community?
The second significant thing here is that biological tests can in fact determine an individual's birth sex. In circumstances in which there is any doubt about an individual's sexual identity, a chromosomal test can resolve the matter scientifically and objectively.
This would quickly resolve matters in Idaho, for instance, where a federal judge has ordered taxpayers there to pay for sex-change hormone therapy for two male inmates who think they are women. Once the tests come back confirming their maleness, then officials should treat them as males, whether the course of treatment is medical or psychological. Perhaps Idaho legislators can be persuaded to enact legislation that calls for a DNA test before such weird and damaging procedures are tried — at taxpayer expense — in the future. Enough of this PC foolishness.
Let's make it standard practice to use such tests on individuals who claim to be "transgendered," and make sure that any medical treatments that are pursued to assist them in dealing with their psychiatric confusion don't make matters worse for them by trapping them in a maze of gender distortion from which they will never emerge.
I never thought athletic officials would show us the way out of the morass of confusion about sexual politics, but it's quite possible they have. Let's follow their lead.
© Bryan Fischer
August 20, 2009
Athletic officials are flailing about trying to figure out how to handle the case of a possibly transgendered athlete, a teenager who has taken the world of women's track and field by storm.
The South African athlete, who claims to be a she and goes by the name of Caster Semenya, is suspected of being a biological male and has taken a gender test to confirm his/her sex. The results of these tests will be available soon.
In the rules of international competition, an athlete is only allowed to compete under his gender at birth.
Two things are significant here. One is that international governing athletic bodies, who can't afford to allow political correctness to trample on fairness in competition, freely and without apology discriminate on the basis of gender. If Semenya turns out to have been a boy all this time, he's out, whether he thinks he's a girl trapped in a man's body or not.
But if fairness and justice make such "discrimination" not just appropriate but essential in athletic competition, why should not society make similar distinctions elsewhere?
And why do transgender activists allow track and field officials to get away with such horrible discrimination without a peep of protest? Where is the outrage from the transgendered community?
The second significant thing here is that biological tests can in fact determine an individual's birth sex. In circumstances in which there is any doubt about an individual's sexual identity, a chromosomal test can resolve the matter scientifically and objectively.
This would quickly resolve matters in Idaho, for instance, where a federal judge has ordered taxpayers there to pay for sex-change hormone therapy for two male inmates who think they are women. Once the tests come back confirming their maleness, then officials should treat them as males, whether the course of treatment is medical or psychological. Perhaps Idaho legislators can be persuaded to enact legislation that calls for a DNA test before such weird and damaging procedures are tried — at taxpayer expense — in the future. Enough of this PC foolishness.
Let's make it standard practice to use such tests on individuals who claim to be "transgendered," and make sure that any medical treatments that are pursued to assist them in dealing with their psychiatric confusion don't make matters worse for them by trapping them in a maze of gender distortion from which they will never emerge.
I never thought athletic officials would show us the way out of the morass of confusion about sexual politics, but it's quite possible they have. Let's follow their lead.
© Bryan Fischer
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