Why do Iowa Republicans hate transgender kids?

Actually, Republicans don’t hate transgender kids. And it’s disingenuous to insist that they do.

The debate raged in the state Capitol last week as the Legislature passed House File 2416, a bill preserving eligibility for female sports to biological females, which Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law last Thursday. I’m pleased that the new law will keep the playing field as level as possible for female student-athletes in Iowa and that lawmakers had the courage to address an issue where logic and emotion clash especially hard.

Fifty years after Title IX was signed to prevent sex discrimination in sports, women and girls are facing a new kind of sex discrimination. Nationwide, student-athletes born as males who are transitioning to a female gender identity have begun playing on female teams, despite in many cases having undergone or even completed the process of male puberty, which affords them a distinct performance advantage over their biologically female counterparts.

Even to an evil Republican, a transgender person is a human being who deserves a place in society.

Iowa’s new law does not outright prohibit transgender students from playing sports. It does limit participation in female-only sports to those who were born as female. Students who were not born female may only play for male or co-ed sports teams, regardless of gender identity.

I recognize that the change isn’t ideal to some. But I reject the notion that the new law was passed out of hatred toward transgender athletes or a desire to discriminate against them.

The impassioned progressives who allege hate and bigotry underestimate the number of conservatives such as myself — conservatives who understand that some people intrinsically feel different from their biological sex. We see no value in declining to acknowledge those identities or refusing to use preferred pronouns. Even to an evil Republican, a transgender person is a human being who deserves a place in society.

Where the strive toward so-called inclusion loses willing people like me is the expectation — nay, the demand — that we ignore the quantifiable physiological differences between males and females. The incontrovertible truth is that those differences exist.

Those differences pertain to muscle, of which males have more, allowing stronger performance. The size of the heart, which favors male aerobic endurance. Body fat composition. Bone size, length and shape. Hormone production. All are measurably different between males and females, with males holding a marked advantage in most factors. Not only does that advantage frequently result in inflated performance outcomes, it can also pose a serious physical risk to females in contact sports such as basketball.

There doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgment of those differences from those furious over the new law. Conspicuously absent from the debate is the phrase “Trust the science,” which we’ve heard ad nauseam for several years now regarding issues like climate change and COVID-19. Perhaps that’s because the science is not on the side of the opposition.

Issues related to sex and gender are where science frequently collides with sentiment. As the discourse becomes more fervid, less room exists to explore the nuances and propose more finely tuned solutions. When a bold line is drawn and a critical thinker is ordered to take a side, one shouldn’t be surprised when the sensible person chooses reason over irrationality.

Althea Cole is a Gazette editorial fellow. Comments: althea.cole@thegazette.com

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