Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox is taking a position that many conservatives won’t like.
Cox is threatening to veto a bill that would ban biologically male, transgender girls from competing in girls youth sports, including high school sports. Instead, the transgender girls would be made to compete on boys teams. Cox said he has concerns that the bill could result in lawsuits and expressed sympathy for transgender children.
“Anyone that’s interacted with the transgender community understands how amazing they are and how difficult it can be for them. I don’t want to make things harder for them than they have to be,” Cox told UPI.
While signing the legislation is the right thing to do, opposing it isn’t a huge deal either. That’s because the transgender sports debate is way overblown. The government shouldn’t allow or promote minors doing irreparable harm to their bodies at ages they’re not considered mature enough to drive a car, buy a scratch ticket, or donate blood. However, the transgender athlete problem is minuscule, and it shouldn’t be a major legislative priority.
The few obvious instances of transgender athletes performing well in women’s sports made national headlines. Lia Thomas is a standout on the Penn women’s swimming team, and two Connecticut males came in first and second place in the state’s high school track and field state championship meet a few years back. While males do have biological advantages in athletic competition that women don’t have, these are extraordinarily rare instances.
When lawmakers propose bills trying to outlaw male, transgender athletes from competing in girls sports, they often can’t cite examples of it ever happening in their respective state. I live in Massachusetts and have covered high school sports since 2015. It’s one of the most liberal states in the country, and yet, I haven’t come across a confirmed or suspected instance of a transgender athlete dominating a girls sport — or even competing in one. Our state law allows boys to play girls sports if the school doesn’t have a boys team in that respective sport, such as field hockey and volleyball (and one instance in soccer last year). I’ve seen boys dominate there every year, but not boys who identify as girls.
Conservatives have no lack of social issues worth addressing in addition to transgenderism. It remains legal to kill unborn babies in the womb. Schools teach woke gender and racial ideology to warp the minds of young children. Substance abuse is rampant. State-run lotteries facilitate gambling addiction and rob working people of billions of dollars each year. And some politicians on both sides of the aisle don’t respect religious freedom.
So, if the Legislature can’t get Cox to agree with it on sports, it should look for places on social issues where common ground is possible.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
