For culture warriors, transgenders in sports have been a hot-button issue. 180 schoolgirls murdered in Iran? Yawn! Child-rapist President? Bo-ring! But a transgender in women’s sports makes their blood boil.
They have a point. Do you want your girls’ basketball team playing against a 110 kg (240 lb.) hulk like Luka Doncic, if he somehow declares he’s female? (He doesn’t, by the way.)
Basketball star Luka Doncic
The culture warriors are quick to ask ‘gotcha’ questions in debates or Congressional hearings, like “can you define ‘woman?’” Most people cannot give a clear answer. Genitalia? Can be changed. Hormones? Can be replaced. Is there one defining criterion?
Actually, there is: the presence of an SRY gene. You inherit your genes at birth, and they cannot be changed. The Olympic Committee has decreed that if you have the SRY gene, you cannot qualify as a female athlete. Case closed; end of story.
But wait, the culture warriors have more tricks up their sleeve. They point to the Mozambican/South African female runner Caster Semenya, who won gold medals and other championships. Here is her photo.
The culture warriors shout, “Anyone can plainly see that’s a man.” In fact, she’s a woman, without an SRY gene and with female genitalia. Her difference is in an overproduction of the male hormone testosterone, which gives her many male characteristics. Culture warriors have attempted to force her to lower her testosterone, to no avail. She is, by definition, female, and must be allowed to compete.
Some females have more testosterone than others, just by their genetic nature, just as some basketball players are well over 2 meters tall. You can’t ban Luka Doncic from competing just because his genes caused him to be too tall. Similarly, you can’t ban Semenya just because her genes caused her to have too much testosterone.
Now what about all those sports that don’t require physical prowess? Ping-pong? Snooker? Why even bother having separate male and female ping-pong competitions? Even chess. There are significant mental changes when a person undergoes hormone replacement therpy. Could those changes give a transgender an advantage in playing chess? It’s all quite complicated, but at least, the SRY gene criterion is simple and applicable.