Dear Editor,
Being a most-proud father of two now adult daughters, a favorite occurrence on Father’s Day is to have each of them share some time with me.
Such visits feed my reminiscences – snapshots from their childhood – recollections of various accomplishments, always reinforced by me saying “Girls Rule!”
With that fresh in my mind, I was likely more sensitive to the media reporting on former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines who testified before a June 21st senatorial hearing regarding transgender men competing in women’s sports.
In conjunction with Pride Month, Senate Majority Whip and Chair of the Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin opened a hearing titled “Protecting Pride: Defending the Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans.”
His remarks were a call to remain steadfast in defending civil rights in the face of a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills, many of which target transgender youth. He asked for “full freedom to live as who they are.”
Riley Gaines, a 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer, had competed for the University of Kentucky. Much of her testimony related to a former University of Pennsylvania men’s swim team member, a six-foot-4-inch, 200-pound male now identifying as transgender Lia Thomas, and the impact of allowing a biological male to compete against cisgender females.
Ms. Gaines, while acknowledging Ms. Thomas’s greater physical attributes, asserted clearly that she was not advocating for transgender athletes to be banned from competitive sports but suggested that they have their own classification.
Ms. Gaines clearly expressed both outrage and diminished respect for the NCAA administrators who were allowing female swimmers to share a locker room with a transgender woman displaying male body parts and a “male gaze” while never having sought consent or input. Seemingly, that violation of rights to privacy was met with an offhanded remark that a ruling had been made and the locker rooms were now unisex. Lia Thomas commented that the women were using the guise of feminism to push transphobic beliefs.
Riley Gaines is concerned about the impact of women competing on a non-level playing field. She believes no girl should lose the opportunity to play sports. She has indicated that for her and other women, participating in sports promotes confidence which contributes to the development of transferable skills – teamwork, communication, and leadership – that are critical to success in life after school.
When I was taught basic biology, there were two sexes: male and female. Today, the concepts of sex and gender are blurring as gender is about self-perception and the expression of one’s sexuality.
Nowadays, more people seem to be aligning with the views of anthropologist Agustín Fuentes. In his book “Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You,” Fuentes suggests our brains are mosaics of characteristically female and male features. He indicates a lack of an explicit male/female binary, but rather a range of being human. Is it time for a reprise of the song from the Broadway musical Seesaw, “It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish?”
Peter Wibell, Rutledge