No.Nonsense.

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in cases contesting the state bans of West Virginia and Idaho on transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports. I’m going to admit I have not read the laws in question. I did hear some of the review of the arguments before the justices. But not being well-versed in the cases, I’m not going to address them specifically. I’m going to speak in logical terms while still trying to temper my arguments with compassion.

There are currently 29 states in the US that have similar bans. The IOC has re-evaluated their stance when it comes to transgender athletes in the Olympics. Meanwhile, various individual sports authorities have reiterated their support for transgender athletes at the same time UPenn stripped Lia Thomas of the medals and titles won when transitioning from the male swim team to the female team and apologized to the female swimmers.

To say this is a divisive topic is an understatement. But even saying that, polls have shown that support for these bans range from 66-79% of Americans.

I’m not going to speak in terms of an ideological argument. I’m simply going to come at it from a purely scientific point of view. A basic Google search presents these physiological differences between men and women. Males have more muscle and bone mass than women. Men tend to have larger skeletal systems. Men have larger hearts. Women’s hearts are smaller with thinner walls that will result in lower blood pressure and higher resting heart rates. Males have larger lungs and wider airways leading to a greater lung capacity. Males have a higher aerobic capacity which is linked to more muscle and oxygen movement. Overall, males have greater strength and power with women having advantages in quicker recovery and less fatigue.

In an endurance sport, a female would have the advantage because of the fatigue and recovery factors. In a sport that requires power and strength, the male would be out front.

No amount of identity can change the realities of biology. No amount of surgical intervention or hormone therapies can replace DNA. How a person feels in their mind does not change how their body is made.

Allowing someone who has the physiological advantages of being born in a male body to directly compete with a biological female is clearly, in my estimation, unfair. What’s more, it is degrading to the integrity of female sports, taking titles and medals and scholarships from the girls and women who have trained so hard for those opportunities.

I truly have compassion for those who deal with gender dysmorphia. I cannot imagine the feelings that such a struggle engenders. I have had those in my own life who have lived this struggle and it has not in any way impacted my love for that person. I will use a person’s preferred pronouns. will call John by the name Jeanette if that is the preference. Why? Because it’s what it means to be a decent human being who has compassion for others.

My son asked me the other day how many genders there were. I told him there are multiple ways that people identify. Before I could go further, he stopped me. As a science kid he said he didn’t ask how people identified, he asked what science shows. And then he schooled me by saying science is that there are two and no more and it’s okay to say it. He’s 12. When my preteen has a more defined viewpoint than an OBGyn who was testifying in a congressional hearing and was unable to answer the question of whether a man can have a baby, there’s something wrong here.

Acknowledging the differences in sports is okay. Recognizing that a biological male will never be able to become pregnant and someone who is pregnant is biologically a female is not wrong. It’s recognizing that science and ideology don’t always align. It’s saying that you can protect the rights of the LGBTQ community without diminishing the integrity of a person’s DNA.

As I was thinking through my points for this column, I was reminded of a classic scene from the movie “Kindergarten Cop” where one of the 5 year olds looks at Arnold Schwarzenegger and says, “boys have a penis, girls have a vagina”. I’m sad it’s not such a simple explanation any longer.