What Do We Do When People Are Equal, But Not Alike?

Lia Thomas and a proper understanding of American equality.

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One of my favorite things about The Dispatch is that our members have a soft spot for nerds, especially for classical liberal nerds. And as I’ve watched the controversy unfold about the University of Pennsylvania’s transgender swimming champion, I’ve been doing what nerds do—thinking about the dispute in terms of the legal and moral foundations of our pluralistic republic. 

For those who haven’t followed, a trans woman named Lia Thomas just won the women’s 500-yard freestyle championship, and the race wasn’t close. Before this year, Thomas raced as a man in both high school and college. While competing as a man, Thomas was a fine swimmer, but nowhere near the NCAA championship level.

Here’s where I am on the dispute. In the vast majority of life circumstances, I do not believe that a trans person should face discrimination because they are trans. But there are limited circumstances where biological realities mean that some distinctions are not only wise, they protect other classes of Americans from both unfairness and intrusion on their rights. 

To understand my reasoning, let’s go back to the founding and guiding texts of the American republic—texts that don’t just create specific legal doctrines but embody a particular biblically-informed morality about the dignity and worth of all people. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason

    Thank you so much for writing this. This really encapsulates my thoughts on this issue. I will be using this article with colleagues.

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  2. Jackson Hammond

    There's a rather large difference between a a trans woman exposing their genitals in a woman's locker room as they get changed into different clothing and a cis man walking into a woman's locker room and exposing his genitals because he's a pervert.

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    Alvin Mast

    To the person who feels passionate to the point of expressing their opinion in language that was once considered vulgar and beyond the pale, in order to save you the trouble of repeating yourself again, I got it, Normie. I only put it here because I couldn't find your expressive post in the thread.

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  4. Normie Osborn.

    I have a more important question than all the other loser-commenters: how come seeing opposite-gender genitals is "exposure" but not same-gender genitals?

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    Andrewabranch

    My extended thoughts (just under 1000 words) as a letter to the editor.

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nFnXO5zVhxvMyE2_PnkdMWcis_pfnINBydjMFxcu08I/edit?usp=sharing

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  6. Dave Lewis

    I'd encourage you to think about how similar the absolutist trans rights position you reject is to the absolutist anti-abortion position you embrace. In both cases we have complex matters of developmental biology which lead to a continuum of how much an organism falls into a particular category. The absolutist trans right position rejects the notion that there can be degrees of being a woman based on developmental history, and says that every trans woman must be treated the same way as every other women for every purpose. The absolutist anti-abortion position rejects the notion that there are degrees of an embryo being a human based on its developmental history, and says that every embryo must be treated as a human for all purposes.

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    John Robert

    Of course trans people should be treated with courtesy and afforded the dignity due every human being. This simple principle is, however, far from dispositive of all important questions. To me, the issue of whether a transwoman should be allowed to compete in the women's division of sports is probably the least interesting. (I do recognize it's hugely important to women competitors, and rightly so.) What really alarms me is the treatment of children. To be blunt, I don't think, say, a five year old has the least idea what it might mean to live as a member of the opposite sex, and to take his expression of such a desire seriously is nothing short of preposterous; to use it as justification for administration of powerful drugs with irreversible effects _is_ abuse, as much as I hate to agree with Gov. Abbot on anything. Pathologizing "gender non-conforming" behavior in children as a reason to put a child on the blockers - hormones - social transition - surgery train is simply criminal, or should be. I'm confident fully a third of women's soccer or basketball players exhibited gender non-conforming behavior as children, but they've turned out just fine. For a serious discussion of these issues, I recommend a podcast from Andrew Sullivan https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hcGkuc3Vic3RhY2suY29tL2ZlZWQvcG9kY2FzdC82MTM3MS5yc3M/episode/c3Vic3RhY2s6cG9zdDozODI3NTg4Mw?ep=14

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  8. AHenry

    Has Mr. French read "The Merchant of Venice?" The response to Shylock's query is that he is not considered human, he is considered a Jew. Everything is stripped from Shylock and he is ruined and alone.

    And "The Merchant of Venice" was considered one of Shakespeare's great comedies.

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    Ben Connelly

    This was a really good piece, David. Nuanced and articulate in a tense topic. I agree with your position but would have trouble making it so carefully.

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    Cantorz

    Much of the debate in American politics, to my mind, stems from differing conceptions of what freedom means in practice. It’s all fine and dandy to affirm your citizens’ divine and inalienable right to liberty. It’s a very different matter to ensure policy is perceived by all as respecting that liberty.

    For example, one person’s definition (and I suppose constitutional interpretation) of liberty might extend to the right to own an assault rifle, while another’s may include the right to not die from gun violence. Those individuals are likely to disagree on gun control policy, but in each case their position stems from perceived assaults on their individual conceptions of liberty. Put differently, in such cases you’re infringing on someone’s conception of freedom, whatever policy you choose.

    In this context, an aspiring female athlete deserves the right to feel she can both compete and win in a fair competition. Other writers for whom I have ample respect (e.g. Matt Yglesias of Slow Boring) have recently asserted there is no obvious conceptual basis for gender segregation in sports, and I think that’s obviously wrong. Just look at the distributions of outcomes among male vs. female athletes competing in the same Olympic events. Does Matt argue that we’re getting less than the best female athletes? Come on, Matt.

    So, biological factors pertaining to men and women at birth, regardless of how those individuals subsequently identify, do infringe on a woman’s right to fair competition in sport. There is no similarly compelling case to be made that certain liberties are infringed upon absent laws banning gender-affirming surgeries or absent laws banning certain discussions in classrooms. However much conservatives invoke the language of freedom in advancing such legislation, the truth is that you’re only talking about infringement on moral sensibilities.

    No founding document set forth laws to insulate your moral sensibilities (BTW, who's the Snowflake now?). Conservatives talk, ad nauseam, about the infallibility of our founding documents, and then consistently fail to live up to the standards set therein. Democrats shouldn’t follow suit by advancing the rights of a small minority by infringing on the rights of all female athletes.

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