How Long Before Gender-Segregated Sports Are Eliminated?

As I’ve said previously, what were considered eternal pillars of human culture just ten years ago are now being challenged on an almost daily basis. The latest examples of this are the debates over “bathroom bills” which seek to clarify that only biological men can use the men’s public restrooms, and conversely that only biological women can use women’s restrooms. (The reality, which usually isn’t reported, is that most conservatives are fine with transgender individuals using the bathroom of their chosen gender, as long as they’ve undergone reassignment surgery.)

The most common compromise suggested in such debates is to have gender-neutral bathrooms set aside specifically for transgender individuals. This has the added benefit of accommodating “gender-fluid” individuals who don’t identify as either male or female. But some of those individuals respond by arguing that by being directly to special restroom facilities, they are being discriminated against. This, coupled with the notion among some radical feminists that separate facilities for men and women serve as gender discrimination, is slowly giving rise to the notion that gender-segregated restrooms and similar facilities should be done away with entirely.

To be clear, only a very few on the hard Left have advanced this idea so far. But I could see it taking hold among a larger proportion of liberals in the years ahead, possibly to the point where the issue will be debated in the political mainstream.

The many reasons why such proposals must be rejected out of hand should be clear. But along with the debate over bathrooms will come a broader debate over other facilities and activities segregated by gender, and in honor of the opening of the Olympics I want to look at that possibility as well.

Specifically: Within the next decade, will we see the end of gender-segregated sports? Will men’s swimming and women’s track be eliminated in favor of events open to both genders? And what would such an arrangement look like?

Change is already coming to the Olympics, with the IOC issuing new guidelines allowing, for the first time, transgender athletes compete in events corresponding with their gender identity, without having to first undergo reassignment surgery. To be clear, those athletes must still be undergoing hormone replacement therapy, but the change is still significant.

But take a movement away from specialized gender roles in recent years, such as the American military allowing women to serve in combat roles; a resistance by many on the Left to recognize any sort of biological difference between genders, coupled with a movement away from biology and toward psychology as a way to determine gender; and the long history of the IOC and other international bodies in actively promoting a variety of liberal causes—and the possibility, at the very least, of the eventual elimination of gender-segregated sports at the international level becomes clear. From there, it is a practical matter of the U.S. Olympic trials and other national competitions becoming gender-neutral, a change that would eventually filter down to the state and local levels of competition.

It’s impossible to know for sure how just how likely any of this is of actually occurring. The only thing that’s clear is that the current trend suggests that such an outcome, within the next couple of decades, is at least possible.

But if it does occur, and gender-segregated sports are eliminated? There would be no ignoring for long the scientific fact that men and women are biologically different, which leads to differing average results between genders in physical activities, and is the reason segregated sports exist in the first place. Assuming every athlete continues to perform at their absolute best, a wide discrepancy would emerge between men and women in terms of those athletes making it to the World Championships or the Olympics, as well as those who eventually won medals.

The only option to keep both gender-neutral events and a more even ratio between male and female victors would be to institute some sort of affirmative action program, at both the initial qualifying stage and to determine the final individual medalists. Of course, this would seemingly undermine the whole point of having gender-neutral events in the first place, but realistically it would be the only way such an arrangement could survive over the long term.

What I Think is Happening with Gender Identity

Would that we could return to just a few years ago, when debate over LBGT issues centered entirely around acceptance of same-sex marriage. The debate was fierce, but easy to understand—should the legal definition of marriage remain as the union of one man and one woman, or be expanded to include two people of the same sex, either two men or two women?

We should have known it wouldn’t remain so simple for long.

The fight over same-sex marriage, which quickly morphed into a still-fierce debate over transgender rights and male/female gender identity, is even now shifting yet again, this time into a series of broader arguments over what truly constitutes gender. People are arguing that they are neither male nor female, but some combination of the two, or neither, and want to be referred to as “it”, “ze”, or “hir”. The movement for equal recognition of same-sex marriage—a movement I personally supported, albeit on a state, rather than federal, basis—has been hijacked into a growing movement calling for the recognition of group marriages, or of marriages between fathers and daughters, or between siblings. Similarly, the support network for those who are attempting to transition from male to female has been hijacked by radicals who believe they are dragons or other animals, fictional or otherwise. (I’m purposely not linking to any articles because many are so disturbing, but there are many easily accessible on Google for anyone curious enough to search for them.)

There’s an old experiment many people try growing up, where they purposely start thinking about an involuntary reflex like breathing, or walking. Most of us don’t think about having to breathe a certain number of times per minute, but the moment you begin thinking about it, you have to remind yourself to continue, and it becomes a conscious action. What was an unconscious reflex, taken for granted, rises to the realm of conscious thought.

The metaphor is strained, sure, but I think something similar is going on in society today with regard to gender identity. The concepts of male and female, something rooted in biology and largely unquestioned throughout history, is now being challenged. We as a society are thinking about things that until now have been relegated to the unconscious ticking of human social construct, but is now being challenged as never before. The ease of modern life, enabled by a standard of living that historically would have qualified some of the poorest among us as kings in the Middle Ages, coupled with a dominant liberal culture that still regards itself as a rebel counterculture, has given rise to a willingness to challenge ever more fundamental aspects of human existence.

And where will all this end up? It’s anyone’s guess, but it would be a mistake to think we’ve by any means reached the final end point, and there are only so many aspects of existence previously thought to be fundamental that can be challenged before society as a whole will itself begin to rebel. Until then, and for good or ill, group marriages and interspecies transitions may become as normalized in the public consciousness as same-sex marriage has been, compared to just a few years ago.