DEMOCRATIC INCOHERANCE ON TRANSGENDER SPORTS

National Review

 

Democratic Incoherence on Transgender Sports

By Noah Rothman

March 4, 2025 2:15 PM

 

The Democratic base’s desire for passionate theatrics from the anti-Trump opposition is regarded by the party’s establishmentarians as unhelpful in this delicate cultural moment. As much as that may be so, it’s hard not to sympathize with the party’s progressive critics. It’s obvious that Democratic elected officials, particularly those at the federal level, don’t have the first clue about how to navigate the new political environment.

 

Take, for example, the party’s successful efforts to block a GOP-sponsored bill that would have barred federal funding for schools that continue to allow male athletes to compete in women’s sports. The Democratic effort to justify an unpopular sop to the unhinged activist class illustrates its confusion and insecurity.

 

The GOP endeavored to codify a presidential executive order protecting women’s sports in the statute. It is apparent in the wildly disparate messages Senate Democrats are promulgating that they did not settle on a unified theory to explain why they killed it. You might think that, given the unpopularity of the Democratic Party’s position, they’d have devoted some thought to that. But you would be mistaken.

 

According to Senator Tammy Baldwin, the legislation was an attack on localism and an overreach by the federal government. “I, for one, trust our states, our leagues, our localities to make these decisions without interference from Congress or the president,” she said. If localism were the solution to this cultural conflict, why, then, did Democrats craft a national standard compelling the inclusion of transgender males in women’s athletics when Joe Biden expanded Title IX’s protections to include prohibitions on discrimination based on gender identity? It’s even weirder that the Biden White House considered but never acted on a measure that would have allowed for commonsense exceptions to this blanket national standard. At least, all this would be strange if you believed Democrats suddenly discovered a deep and abiding respect for federalism. It’s less confusing if you understand that Baldwin is merely grasping for the nearest weapon to hand.

 

Baldwin wasn’t the only Democrat who freelanced an unconvincing rationale for the party’s latest maneuver in the absence of intelligible guidance from the party’s leadership. “The bill — which lacks a clear enforcement mechanism — could subject women and girls to physical inspection by an adult if someone from an opposing team accused them of being transgender,” Senator Dick Durbin speculated. This is an inherently contradictory non-sequitur. How is it that a bill that lacks “an enforcement mechanism” also establishes the predicate for some constabulary devoted to checking women’s genitalia at the locker room door? The claim defies logic — and not just the legalistic sort. If male athletes were physically indistinguishable from their female counterparts, neither the legislation nor Trump’s executive order would be necessary.

 

Most Senate Democrats settled on the idea that the problem Republicans attempted to address was not a problem — not because the social phenomenon to which they are opposed isn’t happening but because it’s not happening that much.

 

The bill’s sponsors are “trying to churn the social wars about something that really doesn’t exist,” said Senator John Hickenlooper. Retiring Senator Gary Peters agreed. In his home state of Michigan, “there’s like two individuals that are actually in this situation,” he speculated. “People are going to realize that it’s really been an issue that Republicans have been trying to exploit.” Maverick Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman abjured his iconoclasm in this instance, advising reporters to watch how he voted to determine whether or not he was “worried about that s***.” He joined the rest of his party in voting nay.

 

Democrats may be right that, in absolute terms, the number of transgender athletes seeking to adulterate women’s sports is small. Other Democrats who claimed that voters care less about this issue than they do the cost of “groceries or health care or housing” should not be dismissed, even if they’re allowing their wish to father that thought. And yet, if ensuring that sports remain competitive is a low-priority issue for voters, it’s also high salience.

 

It’s hard to find an issue on which nearly 80 percent of Americans agree, but keeping men out of women’s sports is one of them. And it’s not because Americans share Republicans’ enthusiasm for “going after some of the most vulnerable people in our society,” as Senator Brian Schatz put it. Preserving the essential fairness of meritocratic competition, be it in sports or the workplace, is a foundational element of the American social compact.

 

Democrats have convinced themselves that they have to be on the wrong side of public opinion if they’re going to be on the right side of history. It must be unnerving that history is taking its sweet time in catching up with Democratic calculations. And yet, when forced to justify their outlook, Democrats do not evince anything like the courage of their convictions.

 

If Democratic hearts were genuinely in this fight, they’d have adopted a more consistent defense of their position. Instead, they retail any and every rationale in support of the continued victimization of female athletes because they’re not speaking to voters. They’re attempting to satisfy an insatiable activist class. So, rather than confront their unreasonable tormentors, Democrats have opted for the worst of all worlds: bending to the demands of marginal progressives but doing so incompetently and unconvincingly. No wonder the Left is so anxious.