ACLU claims trans-identified males have no 'unfair advantage' in girls' sports
The ACLU has come under fire for suggesting that males who identify as female do not have any advantage over biological females in girls' sports.
The advocacy group took to Twitter Wednesday to complain that “Attacks on trans youth in sports are showing up in dozens of state legislatures nationwide.”
The Twitter thread comes after President Joe Biden issued an executive order allowing trans-identified individuals to use bathrooms, locker rooms and showers that correspond with their gender identity as opposed to their biological sex, as well as permitting them to play on the sports team that corresponds with their gender identity.
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After female high school athletes sued Connecticut over its policy allowing biological males to compete in girls' sports, the state of Idaho implemented a law banning biological males from competing in girls' and women's sports, but it was struck down by a federal judge. Efforts to pass such legislation at the federal level have yet to succeed.
The ACLU released a series of claims this week under the heading: “4 Myths About Trans People in School Sports.” The organization rejected the biological fact that “Sex is binary, apparent at birth, and identifiable through singular biological characteristics” when introducing “Fact One,” which asserts that “trans girls are girls.”
The ACLU pushed back on the fact that “Trans athletes’ physiological characteristics provide an unfair advantage over cis athletes,” arguing that “Trans athletes vary in athletic ability just like cisgender athletes.” The advocacy organization bluntly declared that “Trans athletes do not have an unfair advantage in sports.”
FACT TWO: Trans athletes do not have an unfair advantage in sports. pic.twitter.com/1aTLqi6A8i
— ACLU (@ACLU) February 3, 2021
The other two tweets claimed that “including trans athletes will benefit everyone” and that “trans people belong on the same teams as other students.”
Criticism of the ACLU’s proclamation that biological males have no advantage over biological females in women’s sports quickly poured in.
Daily Wire host and commentator Matt Walsh sarcastically responded to the ACLU with a tweet reading, “FACT TWO: The Sun is cold and filled with ice cream.”
Abigail Shrier, an author who has written a book about the transgender debate called Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, poked fun at the way the ACLU was structuring its tweets in defense of transgender athletes, remarking, “FACT: Not one of these @ACLU ‘facts’ is a fact.”
FACT: Not one of these @ACLU 'facts' is a fact. https://t.co/2BwNeVRuOq
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) February 3, 2021
Shrier wrote an op-ed back in October explaining how biologically male athletes competing in women’s sports have an advantage over biological females: “These ‘organizational’ effects of male puberty are profound, and they are permanent: larger hearts and lungs, more oxygenated blood, more fast-twitch muscle fiber, greater upper-body muscle mass, greater bone density.”
These characteristics, Shrier explained, “grant men a massive and unbridgeable advantage over women in nearly every physical contest. Even if a man later takes estrogen and artificially reduces the level of ‘bioactive’ testosterone in his body, he will not surrender these advantages.”
A recently released study proves that even after a year of taking estrogen, biological males who identify as females maintained an advantage over biological females in athletics.
The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, analyzed the fitness test results of trans-identifying Air Force members over the course of five years. Before hormone use, the males who identified as female could perform 31% more push-ups and 15% more sit-ups in one minute than their biologically female counterparts.
After taking hormones for two years, trans-identified males could still do 10% more push-ups and 6% more sit-ups than biological females. While the study found that the differences in the number of sit-ups and push-ups performed by trans-identified males and biological females disappeared after two years of hormone use, biological males maintained an advantage over biological females.
Biological males could run 12% faster than biological females after using hormones for two years. Before taking hormones, biological males could run 1.5 miles 21% faster than their female counterparts.
Shrier mentioned Allyson Felix, a “contender for the title of fastest female sprinter in the world,” who was able to run 400 meters in 49.26 seconds. According to Shrier, “Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high school boys in the U.S. alone could beat” the record.
