The Spreaders of the Trans Athlete Moral Panic Live in a Fact-Free Fantasyland

During his recent speech to U.S. Congress, President Donald Trump turbocharged his manufactured moral panic targeting the trans community. “I signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” he gloated. “I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women’s sports.” Banishing trans people from public life was just “common sense,” he declared.

Trump’s bilious spectacle was to be expected, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom only made things worse when, days later, he claimed during conversation with neofascist MAGA cretin Charlie Kirk that the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.” Newsom added that “the issue of fairness is completely legit. So, I completely align with you.” He concluded, “That’s easy to call out: the unfairness.”

As with so many things that gush from Trump’s gullet, his remarks were brutish bunk. But Newsom, who often tries to shield himself with the fact that he supported marriage equality as far back as 2004, also stood on shaky factual ground. Moreover, in his cringey conversation with Kirk, Gov. Newsom let slip the reason why both he and Trump are so willing to sacrifice the human rights of trans people: electoral politics. In public polling, Newsom said of Democrats, “We’re getting crushed on it.”

Political messaging should be based on shared values, not the short-term political whims of the opportunistic.

In this political environment, so much that passes for “common sense” argument is just evidence-free, anti-science vibes. But facts still matter, or at least they should. “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom,” writes historian Timothy Snyder in his pithy bookOn Tyranny.

When it comes to any supposed advantages that trans women athletes may have, the actual facts are quite different from the “common-sense” hype. The scientific evidence has repeatedly shown that trans women who have undergone hormone replacement therapy for more than a year actually do not have an advantage. One in-depth review of existing scientific literature on transgender athlete participation in competitive sport published between 2011 and 2021 found that “trans women who have undergone testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantages over cis women in elite sport.”

Another study found that transgender women athletes could actually be disadvantaged: “Compared with cisgender women,” the study found, “transgender women have decreased lung function, increasing their work in breathing.” Douglas Oberlin, an exercise physiologist who reviewed the scientific evidence related to transgender athletes’ performance, notes that “the limited information available does not suggest that trans men and trans women have much, if any, athletic advantage post-transition.” Oberlin also highlights that sport federations focus on average differences between cis and trans athletes but overlook performance variations within cis athletes.

Clearly, more research is needed before creating exclusionary policies. But given the small number of transgender athletes, Oberlin cautions that excluding them from sports solely due to concerns about inequality or injury risk “may be a solution in search of a problem.”

Back in the terfy, moral-panic fantasyland, such rational caution is nowhere to be found. In their own ways, Trump and Newsom treat trans people as if they were mere political chits to be swapped and bartered. This despite the fact that experts from the United Nations have asserted, “Categoric exclusions of trans and intersex women from women’s sports is a prima facie violation of human rights.” As sports writer Frankie de la Cretaz toldThe Nation, “Denying a group of people their basic human rights is morally reprehensible and illegal, regardless of the size of that community.”

Forming political values based on polling numbers is bereft of ethics. After all, interracial marriage didn’t surpass 50% approval in the United States until the mid-1990s. In 2005, 68% of those polled thought same-sex marriage should not be recognized as valid whereas today the very opposite is the case. Political messaging should be based on shared values, not the short-term political whims of the opportunistic.

Let’s be absolutely clear: The stakes are sky-high. The endgame of this bipartisan, anti-trans witch hunt is twofold. On the practical side, it enables the bracing possibility of raving randos demanding genital checks from the sidelines of youth sports events for kids who don’t conform to their strict versions of gender. (In West Virginia, Republicans have already voted through legislation green-lighting healthcare providers’ ability to perform genital checks on children without parental consent). But more broadly, the endgame is trans banishment. As journalist Dave Zirin put it, “The ‘pro-trans in everything but sports’ position can metastasize into… a broader anti-trans stance, the forcible erasure of transgender people from society.”

The push to expel trans women from elite sport, aided and abetted by Democrats like Gavin Newsom, is stoked by what Judith Butler calls “fascist passions.” As M. Gessen recently wrote, “The message, consistent and unrelenting, is that trans people are a threat to the nation. The subtext is that we are not of this nation.”

Fortunately, despite Trump and Newsom’s craven political opportunism, not all elected officials are singing from their grim hymnal. Democrats in the U.S. Senate recently scuppered a Republican bill that would have banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. In Montana, elected officials went further, with more than two dozen Republicans flipping the Trumpain script and voting against a slew of anti-trans bills.

As political mayhem continues to unfold across the country and wider world, it is vital to remember that trans rights are human rights. Full stop. One day a thriving trans community will be as normalized as interracial or same-sex marriage. But this won’t happen automatically. It’s time to stand up. This battle is far from over.