A Transgender Sports Compromise?
Why Martina Navratilova's proposal seems unlikely to be realized
Sports Biblio Reader 2.14.21
The Imagination of Sports in Books, History, the Arts and Culture
Also In This Issue: Steelers’ Super Scout; Cool Papa Bell; So Long, Pacific Coast League; Highbrow Soccer Books; The Lost Films of Pete Maravich; The Making of Loserville; An Unlikely Polo Star; Solitary Sport in a Pandemic; Boycotting Beijing?; Gronk’s Olympic Great Gramps; Remembering Leon Spinks, Marty Schottenheimer and Tom Konchalski
Martina Navratilova has been catching a whole bunch of hell for stating the obvious and daring to defend it:
Sports for girls and women are segregated by biological sex for a very good reason, and they should stay that way.
It’s been a couple years since I wrote about the fraught landscape of intersex and transgender sports and the attempts by zealots to silence the tennis great from any public role in what’s becoming an incredibly politicized issue.
To her credit, Navratilova has stuck to her guns despite the backlash, and has stood almost virtually alone among notable sportswomen in America.
Having a good bit of F U money and status certainly helps—J.K. Rowling is in a similar situation in the U.K.—but recently Navratilova gained some important establishment allies on these shores.
Former Women’s Sports Foundation leaders Donna de Varona, Nancy Hogshead-Makar and Donna Lopiano have joined her and others to form the Women’s Sports Working Policy Group.
What they’re proposing is something of a compromise to create alternatives for transgender women (biological males who identify as female) instead of having them compete directly against biological females.
Specifically, they would draw the line at excluding transgender females who’ve gone through puberty as males to compete against biological females—which is where I’ve long thought the distinction should be made.
The group’s introductory statement says that while “gender-affirming” hormones may mitigate the advantages of male puberty for transgender female athletes, “the evidence is increasingly clear that hormones do not eliminate the legacy advantages associated with male physiological development.”
This is happening because President Joe Biden signed an executive order barring discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and whose vague language has some women’s activists—and not just in sports—concerned.
(The whole matter of adding the “T” to “LGB” is troublesome, since the former is about gender identity, while the latter is about sexual orientation, which are two vastly different things. But I digress.)
The Martina-led effort also comes as legislators in a number of states have introduced bills barring transgender females from participating in girls and women’s sports, and they aren’t nearly as forgiving as her group.
There are some interesting other supporters now standing with Navratilova, including Joanna Harper, a transgender woman runner from Canada and author of one of the few books on the topic, transgender tennis pioneer Renee Richards, American Olympic track gold medalists Benita Fitzgerald-Mosley and Sanya Richards-Ross and race car driver Lyn St. James, another WSF leading light.
Hogshead-Makar told Christine Brennan of USA Today that while she supports Biden’s executive order in principle, “competitive sports, however, are akin to pregnancy and medical testing; these areas require a science-based approach to trans inclusion.
“. . . . asking women—no requiring them—to give up their hard-won rights to compete and be recognized in elite sport, with equal opportunities, scholarships, prize money, publicity, honor and and respect, does the cause of transgender inclusion no favors.”
In other words, there are clear exceptions around which hard lines must be drawn, for reasons of biological sex. The same goes for battered women’s shelters, fitness club locker rooms and gyms, prisons and other areas of society where physical protections of women must be enforced.
Finally, here in the U.S., prominent women’s sports leaders are vocalizing this reality, as some in Britain and elsewhere have been doing for a few more years, and enduring plenty of abuse for it.
Until recent years, this was a position that was considered common sense. But women’s sports leaders have been taken aback by the strident claims of transgender advocates that sports must be equitable along the lines of gender identity.
Even the Women’s Sports Foundation has been muddled on the transgender issue, crafting a disappointing position paper that dances around the implications for the sake of wanting to appear “tolerant.”
What’s important to note about the Women’s Sports Working Policy Group is its generational makeup: This is the old guard of women who fought college football coaches tooth and nail on Title IX issues, and for prize money on pro tours to close the huge historical gap enjoyed by men, and to have equitable events for women on the Olympic roster.
By comparison, younger women are proud “allies” of the transgender cause, to the absurd extent of rubbing out the biological truth of the sexes.
This is being played out largely in the media, where Navratilova made her initial objections. Outsports, a gay sports website started by two gay men and now edited by a transgender woman, accused Martina and her group of playing “both sides” of the issue, as if it’s a bad idea to try and stake out some sliver of common ground:
“Given her history of fighting against transgender inclusion in athletics, the WSWPG will have to go above and beyond to convince pro-inclusion advocates that they’re truly interested in accommodating trans athletes.”
This is why I’m skeptical Martina’s proposal will go very far: There’s no acknowledgement from the transgender lobby on something so obvious as the need to keep women’s sports the way they are. What the working group is proposing is to thread a very delicate and narrow needle, even aside from the poorly-worded Biden order, but it is “accommodating trans athletes” in the fairest way possible.
However, we live in very fevered, irrational and science-denying times, especially in the culture wars, which in many ways are generational battles. Even the ACLU, overtaken by woke ideology, peddles this nonsense.
Katie Barnes, a “non-binary” writer for the women’s sports vertical espnW, has fallen for the delusion that biology is a social construct, having written glowingly of transgender female athletic participation. Barnes is at work on a book, “The Determination of Sex,” which, according to her St. Martin’s Press publisher’s blurb, “will bring readers to the front lines of the battle for equal rights in our country’s athletic institutions and prove once and for all that sex exists on a spectrum.”
Except there’s no such spectrum, there’s nothing to prove about it, and one doesn’t have to have been an ace biology student (I certainly wasn’t) to understand this. Yet, arguments to the contrary command a six-figure advance. Sweet.
Identify however you like, and use whatever pronouns you prefer or care to make up, but to deny biological reality is not about equal rights. In fact, it is an extremely dangerous denial to assert.
“Who gets to be a woman,” in sports, or otherwise, is determined at birth, and cemented during puberty. Changing identity will never change that truth.
Sex is innate and all but a tiny number of us are either male, or female. Without those distinctions respected, honored and defended, the whole enterprise of sports for girls and women will be rendered into oblivion.
Some women’s sports leaders who’ve devoted much of their energies so girls like me could have fun, develop confidence and enjoy competing with, and against, other girls, are finally starting to wake up about what’s at stake.
I hope they’re not too late.
A Few Good Reads
I would love to see someone rate the Pro Football Hall of Fame classes like is done for the NFL Draft, college recruiting, etc., and to judge how the group of 2021 stacks up in history. Peyton Manning, Drew Pearson, Charles Woodson, Calvin Johnson and, at long last, former Raiders coach Tom Flores headline the eight men who got the call to Canton. The others are Steelers guard Alan Faneca, Bucs safety Jon Lynch and longtime Steelers scout and front-office executive Bill Nunn. Before he began his 47-year-tenure with the organization, he was a columnist and editor for the black Pittsburgh Courier newspaper. He drafted John Stallworth, Mel Blount, Donnie Shell and other members of the Steelers dynasty that won five Super Bowls. Nunn, who died in 2014, was a member of the inaugural class of the Black College Football Hall of Fame in 2010;
The Baseball Hall of Fame inductions called off in 2020 will be taking place this summer, but will not be open to the public. A made-for-TV event has been scheduled to include last year’s class along with 2021 inductees chosen by bodies other than the baseball writers, who elected no one;
Major League Baseball’s new org chart of the minor leagues was announced this week, with 120 teams, many having changed affiliations to meet new geographic desires. That’s understandable, but the new names for those circuits are not. There’s no more Pacific Coast League or International League, but instead Triple-A West and Triple-A East. Pretty soulless, but commissioner Rob Manfred is writing a textbook on how to strip away tradition from the game for virtually no good reason;
The Guardian (U.K. version) is running a list of top 10 books on a number of topics, and enlisted David F. Ross author of an upcoming novel about a Scottish football player’s return to his hometown, to list his favorite soccer books. It’s an interesting collection, heavy on literary and socio-cultural themes that don’t always make such lists. Nick Hornby’s classic “Fever Pitch” is here, but Ross’ headliner is “Damned United,” David Peace’s 2016 novel about Brian Clough’s short, stormy tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974, and that was later made into a film;
Some rarely-seen films of Pete Maravich’s NBA career are set to be auctioned off next month. Complete footage of 37 games are 16-millimeter, black-and-white, reel-to-reel tapes, and belonged to Bill Bertka, formerly the general manager of the New Orleans Jazz, where Maravich began his pro career. The films don’t have sound, and were shot in the days before the NBA had the television exposure of today;
In September a book about Atlanta sports—and specifically the Flames NHL team that lasted eight years there in the 1970s—will be published by Vermont-based writer and teacher Clayton Trutor. The Rutland Herald recently spoke to him about how he chose the storyline for “Loserville,” and how during his research he was thrilled to meet Sports Illustrated luminary Frank Deford. Here’s an excerpt, and this does bring back vivid memories of my Flames fandom during my high school days, including regularly seeing Boom Boom Geoffrion drive around in the neighborhood next to mine in his Lincoln Town Car, a perk of doing commercials for a local Lincoln-Mercury dealership;
The latest guest on Trutor’s Down the Drive blog on SB Nation is David Krell, author of a newly published book about baseball and America against the backdrop of John F. Kennedy’s presidency;
Calls are mounting to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to the Chinese regime’s concentration camp treatment of Uighurs, Hong Kong crackdowns and other repressive measures. A coalition of 180 rights groups in Asia has issued a singular plea with the IOC, which has thus far ignored it, and the U.S. government for now is signaling no plans to sit it out;
In 1924, Ignatius J. Gronkowski, the son of Polish immigrants and who grew up in Buffalo, competed for the U.S. as a cyclist in the Olympics. Last Sunday, his great-grandson, Rob Gronkowski, won his fourth Super Bowl as he and former Patriots teammate Tom Brady hooked up on two touchdown passes in Tampa Bay’s 31-9 romp over the Chiefs. Iggy Gronk finished 45th out of 72 starters in a 188-mile road race in Paris, and later that year became a father to Iggy Jr. His son Gordon began the family’s participation in American football, playing at Syracuse;
From Quillette, Matt Fuchs writes about how he’s coping with social isolation during the pandemic. Since his tennis courts closed in Maryland, he’s been hitting balls against a wall and has come to like the experience: “Beyond mere convenience, I savor the tranquility of the Wall compared to playing matches, when I must summon the willpower to sustain my performance and fighting spirit for multiple hours—and, too often, swallow losses I take too personally.”
Sports Book News
Published this week by Abrams Press: “The Bonafide Legend of Cool Papa Bell,” a biography of the Negro Leagues star who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame 46 years ago this week. It’s the final book for longtime sportswriter and baseball author Lonnie Wheeler, who died not long after the manuscript was complete. An early review at the Sports Book Guy blog, where a guest poster rates his favorite baseball novels of all time;
Also published this week, by St. Martin’s Press, “Crossing the Line,” by Kareem Rosser, a personal account of his journey from a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Philadelphia to becoming the captain of the first all-black team to win the National Interscholastic Polo championship. A mini-review from Publishers Weekly, and a longer look at InsideHook, a lifestyle publication.
Media Lodge Notes
Too many tragic deaths of sports journalists to note here, starting with Pedro Gomez, the longtime ESPN baseball reporter, who was 58 when he passed away unexpectedly on Sunday. A cause of death has not been disclosed, but among those offering tributes were players Juan Soto and Alex Bregman. Gomez started with newspapers, including the Arizona Republic, and in Phoenix, his impact on the game and his profession was immense. Survivors include a son, Rio, a prospect in the Red Sox farm system;
This one really hits close to me: Sekou Smith, whom I met on the SEC football beat before we were colleagues at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, died at 48 of complications from COVID. He was the Hawks beat writer, then moved over to NBA.com, where he became a multi-platform star. Sekou was warm, funny, engaging and passionate about his work and the NBA community embraced him easily. If you knew him it’s not hard to understand why. The Hawks have named their press room after him, and have started an award and a special internship in his honor;
Terez Paylor, an NFL writer for Yahoo! Sports, didn’t cover the Super Bowl due to illness. He died two days later, at the age of 37, and the cause of death has not been announced. Previously, he had been the Chiefs beat writer for the Kansas City Star, where columnist Sam Mellinger wrote this tribute of a young sportswriting star in the making;
“Big Jim” Bay, 79, was a longtime radio and TV sportscaster in Montreal who covered many sports, and hockey in particular, and in the late 1970s challenged Canadiens great Rocket Richard to deliver the sports headlines on a Top 40 station where he was working;
This is a retirement notice: Bill Reynolds wrote about sports, especially college basketball, for more than 30 years at the Providence Journal, and is the author of several basketball and sports books, including “Fall River Dreams” and “Glory Days,” a 1999 memoir. I thought I’d be meeting him last year at the Final Four when we were announced in the same class of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, but that was cancelled at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hope I’ll have the honor of a formal introduction soon.
Passings
Leon Spinks, 67, shocked Muhammad Ali in 1978 to win the world heavyweight title at the age of 24, but that turned out to be the highlight of his star-crossed boxing career. Ali exacted revenge, and Spinks lost his only other title bout, to Larry Holmes in 1981, and endured financial and medical problems. The day after his death due to prostate cancer, John Moriello wrote at Sportscasting that Spinks peaked too soon, and struggled to handle his early fame. But for a high school dropout who beat the odds just to reach the heights he did, and to suffer from bad health for many years, Spinks “was a fighter from the start until the end,” remembers his son, Cory;
Marty Schottenheimer, 77, won 200 games as an NFL head coach with the Browns, Chiefs, Redskins and Chargers with a hard-driving “smashmouth” style. But “Martyball” didn’t translate into post-season success, as Schottenheimer’s teams were 5-13 overall in playoff games. Twelve of his former assistants became head coaches, including newly crowned Super Bowl winner Bruce Arians of Tampa Bay, as well as Bill Cowher and Tony Dungy. Schottenheimer, who was moved into hospice care before last week’s Super Bowl due to advanced Alzheimer’s, was remembered fondly by former players, including ex-Browns running back Kevin Mack: “We all realize we lost somebody who not only helped us out tremendously at the beginning of our careers, but who helped shape and mold us into what we are today;”
Tom Konchalski, 74, was a high school basketball scout who was a fixture at summer camps and tournaments, relentlessly evaluating talent for college coaches, media and other hoops mavens for more than four decades. He had retired in May due to a cancer prognosis, but as John Feinstein wrote this week, Konchalski accepted the situation as he did with most everything—head on: “Tom was never a complainer. Whenever we talked about the cancer, even on Christmas when he admitted he was in constant pain and couldn’t taste food, he would say, ‘A lot of people have it a lot worse than me.’ ”
For further reading:
“One Punch from the Promised Land: Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, and the Myth of the Heavyweight Title,” by John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro
“Martyball: The Life and Triumphs of Marty Schottenheimer, the Coach Who Really Did Win It All,” by Marty Schottenheimer with Jeffrey Flanagan
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