Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing on Tuesday that the issue of “transgender” athletes in school sports is “complicated.”
“It is a complicated issue,” she asserted. “It is truly a complicated issue with a wide range of views – a wide range of views. There is no yes or no answer to this; it is complicated.”
But here’s the rub. It is not complicated. Humanity exists as male and female.
Keeping men out of women’s sports is not a complicated issue. Not in the slightest. It never has been. In fact, it’s quite simple.
No male should be allowed to play, participate or compete against females in any sex-segregated sport.
Let me say it louder for those in the back: Men should play on the men’s team. Girls should play on the girls’ team.
Period. End of story. Full stop.
This is a “yes or no” issue. And the answer is unequivocally no.
It doesn’t matter if a man sincerely believes – or is just pretending to believe – he’s a woman. It doesn’t matter if he’s believed it for five minutes, five years or five decades.
It doesn’t matter if a man has undergone various transgender medical interventions to appear more like a woman.
A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. Men compete against men. Women compete against women. They are bodies competing against bodies, not some undefined “gender.”
This is a simple issue. The purpose behind sex-segregated sports is rooted in a basic fact of reality: men and women are different, and unalterably so.
On average, men are stronger, faster, taller and heavier than women. They have greater muscle mass and density. Their bones are stronger. They have greater lung capacity. And they have more fast-twitch muscle fibers.
This means that men, in general, can out-compete women. The average male can best high performing females.
Hence, sex-segregated sports.
This all used to be common sense.
We shouldn’t have to reiterate reality. We shouldn’t have to spend portions of our lives thinking through basic biological truths. We shouldn’t have to defend women who are being easily beaten – sometimes in physically abusive ways – in athletics.
And yet, we do, and we must.
As Christians, we know that God created mankind in the imago dei – the very image and likeness of God – and that mankind was created male and female.
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27, ESV).
And yet, this issue of men competing in women’s sports is not a Christian issue per se. It is not primarily a theological issue, though it has obvious theological and moral implications.
It is an issue of basic reality.
Are we going to recognize that men and women are different?
Are we going to recognize that each person has a fundamental human nature that is either male or female with no other option?
If we reject our biological identity and our very human nature – great consequences are sure to follow.
It is not complicated.
For families and individuals struggling with transgender issues, Focus on the Family offers a free, one-time counseling consultation with a licensed or pastoral counselor. To request a counseling consultation, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) or fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.
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