Transgenderism: Earning Acceptance Requires Course Change

Reeve largely presented a reasonable position and rationale from which I respectfully dissent. She did not address when a man who identifies as a woman may play in the WNBA. Is a recent epiphany sufficient? Must he be taking hormones? Must his testosterone be below a specified level? Or, must he physically transition through gender reassignment surgery?

A 2025 report from the UCLA Williams Institute estimates there are about 700,000 transwomen and a similar number of transmen (biological women).

According to the Advocates for Trans Equality Education Fund which conducted the most comprehensive survey of trans people, 40% have never undergone any stage of medical transition, 56% received hormones, and 29% had at least one gender-related procedure, usually chest surgery for transmen and electrolysis for transwomen. Fewer than 10% have had the surgery required to transition, and most do not want it. Nine percent eventually reverted to living as their biological sex.

The NCAA, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, International Olympic Committee, 27 states – and the WNBA – limit women’s sports to biological females. Other sports organizations have adopted policies across the spectrum.

Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton’s reaction to protecting women was typical of trans activists. It is widely reported that she berated two 16-year-old girls at a recent game who were wearing “XX-XY” T-shirts and holding signs that read “Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls.” She called them “f***ing insane” and told them they should seek forgiveness for the “sin” of backing biology.

Provided they do not burden others, adults should have the right to pretend they are another sex, take medication, mutilate themselves, and participate in society, though transgenderism will not attain acceptance as long as activists rely on lies and bullying.

However, transwomen do not belong in women’s sports, pre-transition transwomen do not belong in women’s private spaces, IDs must be accurate, children must be protected, and free speech must not be abridged. There are also stressful and sensitive environments, such as the military, that may not be well-suited to supporting transgender needs without disruption to normal operations and team cohesion.

Last year, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy by transgender teenagers. On June 30, in West Virginia v. B. P. J., the court concluded that “given the inherent physical differences between the sexes” it was reasonable under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment for schools to maintain women’s and girls’ sports teams limited to biological females.

Writing for the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that the sexes differ in “height, weight, strength, speed, endurance, and jumping ability.” He added that “forcing female athletes to compete against males can create significant safety risks” in contact sports, and that “in virtually all competitive sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can undermine competitive fairness.” Kavanaugh observed that “allowing a biological male athlete to compete on a girls’ team necessarily displaces or disadvantages a female athlete—replacing her on the roster, knocking her out of the starting lineup, reducing her playing time, depriving her of a medal, and the like.”

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, after the age of 12, “significant differences” emerge between males and females, with older males being “stronger, more powerful, and faster than females of similar age and training status.” A review of 24 studies concluded that even after 36 months of hormone therapy, transwomen retain material strength advantages. Clearly, they retain size advantages. Overall, transwomen retained performance advantages of 10% to 50%, depending upon the sport.

Holding a medical, psychology, or social work degree apparently confers no special ability to assess whether trans people are mentally ill. If it did, the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association would do so, and the American Medical Association and American Society of Plastic Surgeons would not have waited until this year to disfavor gender-related surgery for minors.

Refusing to acknowledge that an individual who rejects his biological sex, mutilates his body, and/or pursues a lifetime of surgery, hormones, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety medication is mentally ill places politics above health.

Insisting that the 40% of transwomen who are cross-dressers cosplaying as women are actually women is farce.

Based on their public discourse and vast overrepresentation in political violence, members of the trans community exhibit dangerous levels of anger. Progressives deflect by pointing to incidents in which trans people are victims, and assert that mass shootings by transgender perpetrators are rare.

Trans people are rare, but, they hit well above their weight in political violence (not a synonym for mass shootings), shaping the left’s intersectional agenda, corrupting language, and intimidating institutions to cancel, fine, and imprison those who “misgender,” and speak truth. Transwomen violence against girls is not justified by violence against trans people.

About 32% of trans individuals express regret with their decisions. In 2017, the American College of Pediatricians reported that about 98% of gender-confused boys and 88% of gender-confused girls naturally resolve their confusion, and that rates of suicide are nearly 20 times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery.

The Department of Health and Human Services reported that puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and sex-change surgeries are “associated with significant risks” that cause “irreversible physical or physiological effects,” and that there is “very weak evidence” that the procedures offer any benefit for children. A 2024 report commissioned by NHS England concludes that puberty blockers compromise bone density and do not improve gender dysphoria, body satisfaction, or “buy time to think,” and that there is “concern that they may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development.”

Citing serious health risks and a lack of supporting evidence, Sweden, France, and England have imposed restrictions on puberty blockers and genital mutilation.

In his concurring opinion in BPJ, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote:

Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls … even if they believe that they are. Sex is an immutable, biological characteristic; it is binary; and “man” and “woman,” “boy” and “girl,” are the terms that correspond to adults and children of each sex. To use language to obscure reality … is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens as equals.

Transgender activists will achieve much more with truth than with lies and harassment.