Sen. Rand Paul made headlines this week when he asked President Biden’s pick to head the Department of Education, “Do you think it’s fair to have boys running in the girls’ track meet?”
Paul’s line of questioning came after Biden signed his “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” on Jan. 20. That directive allows transgender women who have gone through male puberty to compete in women’s sports. Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said this would “destroy girls’ sports.”
During his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Biden’s education pick, Miguel Cardona, responded, “I think it’s the legal responsibility of schools to provide opportunities for students to participate in activities, and this includes students who are transgender.” He repeated different versions of this answer after each question from the senator.
Paul finally said, “I think the fact that you seem to be afraid to answer the question, or you basically do answer the question by saying it’s OK without saying it’s OK, really is a statement to [a] real problem we have and a disconnect between middle America and what most Americans actually believe.”
That disconnect is not exclusively a Right-Left one, either.
On the same day Paul questioned Cardona, tennis legend and LGBT champion Martina Navratilova told BBC Radio there should be a “carve-out” or separate provision from Biden’s executive order to make sure women’s sports remain an even playing field. Navratilova said she did not want “an all-inclusive situation where trans men and women, just based on their self-ID, would be able to compete with no mitigation. … That clearly would not be a level playing field.”
Navratilova is part of a group that wants a “science-based, ethical approach” to “establish a middle ground that both protects girls’ and women’s sport and accommodates transgender athletes.” The group, the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, seeks to “carve-out for elite sports … where there will be some rules as to what is possible and what is not, that are basically only based on biology and evidence and science.”
The tennis legend added, “We are only talking about taking a carve out or a separate policy for elite sports or sports at the higher level of high school, college, and pros.”
Navratilova has long been a heroic champion for the gay community and women. That now includes protecting the integrity of women’s sports from the extreme excesses of today’s LGBT community.
Navratilova was openly gay during a period in U.S. history when it was far more difficult and has always been a staunch advocate for LGBT rights. But when the nine-time Wimbledon champion published an op-ed in 2019 arguing that allowing transgender female athletes to compete in women’s sports was “insane,” the backlash was fierce.
LGBTQ advocacy group Athlete Ally quickly kicked Navratilova off its advisory board, and the hard-Left LGBT community basically disavowed her. She was even accused of being “transphobic.”
Navratilova apologized and promised to better “educate” herself on the subject. She did. And then she reiterated her point.
“To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organization is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires,” Navratilova wrote. “It’s insane and it’s cheating.”
“I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her,” she wrote. “It would not be fair.”
No, it wouldn’t. This was the same basic point Paul made, which most Americans agree with.
For the record, I have defended transgender Americans and pleaded with others, particularly conservatives, to try to understand and be more compassionate toward one of the least understood groups of people in our society.
But this does not mean that people who were born biologically male but now identify otherwise should be able to compete athletically with females. This is basic common sense, as both Paul and Navratilova have expressed in different ways.
The fact that this can’t be said out loud without the “wokesters” and the popular culture they influence wanting to cancel you, and wanting to cancel even Navratilova, says more about today’s hard Left than critics of this preposterous idea.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
