Trans-Right Affect Women’s Rights

You are at your daughter’s high school track event, watching all the young female athletes prepare to race. Each contender lines up at the starting line. Seconds later, the sound of the gun rings in the air and the runners fly off from their starting position. You sit in anticipation as you watch your daughter start to gain on the runners in the inner lane. As they round the track, your daughter takes the lead and it’s a 200 meter sprint to the finish line. Less than quarter of a minute later, your daughter flash across the finish line in a victorious conclusion. You stand from your seat cheering at her win ready to congratulate her later that evening.

One year later, you receive a phone call from a stranger who claims there is an investigation over your daughter’s validity to have participated in the race to begin with. Other parents are accusing your cis-gender daughter of being transgender because she’s not feminine enough. The investigation into your daughter’s gender is launched without your permission and you are unable to stop this possible violation of privacy.

This is similar to what has recently happened to a family in Utah. Their daughter won a female sports competition and the parents of two different families accused the winner of being a trans-girl. The winner’s family had their daughter’s school records scrutinized for validation that she was born a cis-gender female. Is this the America we really want to continue to shape and support?

Sports have been around with us for centuries. We can all agree there is a difference between men and women, but it seems we can’t agree there are always going to be those athletes who break the norm and perform beyond what we expect because there is an element that remains ignored: genetics. To simply say a person is better at a sport because of their biological anatomy is starting to become preposterous. Yet, instead of reshaping sports categories, we continue to put inequitable guidelines on who can participate in which sport.

When the anti-trans bills became a controversy, many LGBTQ advocates were well aware of the consequences that would transpire, yet state legislatures turned a deaf ear to the opposition and continued to make them into law. Presently, Utah is the first of many states who will run into questionable territory: invasion of privacy. Parents in these states may end up losing their right to privacy when their daughters are questioned for winning a sports competition.

Furthermore, it raises an age-old question: “What does it mean to be feminine enough?” Women have been the target of unnecessary scrutiny for many generations because of westernization. Indigenous cultures who had a better understanding of people outside of gender roles, were stripped of their way of life and forced to assimilate to western ideology. So, in our modern world, where women have for decades fought to break the chains of stereotypical gender roles, why are we asking this question of “what is a woman?” The answer should be simple: a woman is a human.

Women (cis or trans) should not let a political agenda of one party, nor religion shape the definition of what it means to be a woman. Women have their own definition of womanhood. For some it includes being glamorous with fashion and make-up, while others take a more rugged exterior approach. Some women have a strong desire to build a large family, others cannot fathom the thought of growing a person in their body and would never consider motherhood. In the end, a woman is human: they have their own thoughts and ideal way of life and that should be respected, not questioned.

Sports should be revised to align with the world we live in today. Either that, or stop questioning girls’ and women’s athletic ability (trans, cis, or otherwise). The reason many of these bills exist is because it is supported by politicians who do not conduct scientific research on the effects of hormone replacement therapy, nor have an understanding of the physical changes of being transgender. If the modern world is going to continue its rampant attack on trans-girls and trans-women, cis-gender women will ultimately fall into the crosshairs of these attacks because of the varied perceptions of what it means to be a woman.