Recent Transgender Day of Visibility a reminder that NCAA should redo scared policy
Apparently March 31 was Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV).
Like you, I had no idea, either.
The NCAA’s highest profile, most profitable event, concludes this weekend in New Orleans — the men’s basketball tournament, and the Final Four.
Someone needs to grill NCAA president Mark Emmert on his organization’s policies that need updating.
The NCAA’s fear of a lawsuit is the only reason why it’s not changing its policy that basically allows a fully developed male to potentially compete as a female in women’s sports.
Whatever “science” the NCAA supports is dated, and if transgender males-to-females are going to be allowed to participate in women’s sports they need to take more potent drugs.
The NCAA’s worst possible outcome happened earlier last month when Penn’s Lia Thomas, who was born a male, won the 500-meter freestyle at the 2022 NCAA swimming and diving championships in Atlanta.
Thomas’ win is the only reason 99.999999 percent of America even knew there was a 2022 NCAA swimming and diving championship.
If she had finished fourth, this is not the national issue it has become.
She won, which makes it a “crisis.”
Her win kicked off the predictable amount of outrage from conservative talk-show hosts, who after reading a headline or two spewed venom for seven minutes between the commercials that pay their seven-figure salaries.
Thomas was a three-year competitor for the men’s swim team at Penn before she joined the women’s team.
Thomas followed the NCAA’s protocols, and took the required hormone-suppressant medications to be eligible to participate as a female.
Swimming as a man, Thomas was decent.
Swimming as a woman, Thomas became a champion.
That’s a problem, but hardly a crisis.
“It’s not an issue we sit around and talk about every day,” Stanford graduate and current professional women’s volleyball player Cassidy Lichtman said after practice on Thursday at Fair Park in Dallas.
Lichtman plays for Athletes Unlimited, a pro volleyball league that plays all of its matches in Fair Park in Dallas.
“Is it an issue we’re going to have to deal with over the next few years, or decade? Sure. We care about competitive equity, obviously, we’re athletes,” she said. “If you want to be an advocate for women’s sports, there is plenty to advocate for rather than keying in about the one or two people you are concerned about.
“We are so angry about this one thing that has not proven to be a giant issue, yet we completely ignore these things that have been proven to be incredibly significant issues in the youth and women’s sports community.”
She’s right.
And, on an issue as polarizing as transgender people, you only need one. One example to motivate the masses.
The issue of transgender people in sports is not going away, and it is only a problem in women’s sports. No one should care if a woman wants to compete against a man. That’s “playing up,” and no one should be punished, or mocked, when they play up.
The concern, to complaints, from advocacy groups for women in sports is to make sure that the field is fair.
The NCAA’s policy has not been updated in about 10 years. Critics of the NCAA, like the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, insist the NCAA is relying on dated science.
After watching Thomas win, something is obviously amiss, a point on which Lichtman does not entirely agree.
The vision of Thomas standing on a podium flanked by two other competitors was the fear flamethrower at people who were only too sure that this was going to happen — that a ”man” was going to take the spot of a woman, either on the team or the medal stand.
“For those parents, flip it the other way,” Lichtman said. “What if your child is the transgender female? How can I say to an entire group of people regardless of their actual ability that they can’t participate and be who they are at the same time.
“We have to remember there are people with different advantages in sports all the time,” she added. “I’m on the court all the time with people who have advantages over me, and I’m 6-feet tall. There is a huge spectrum.”
Lichtman is on the board of USA Volleyball, and the issue of transgender athletes in her sport is a point of discussion.
It’s not a point of panic.
“I do think all of these policies need to be continually looked at and updated,” she said. “This is an issue in all sports, even if it’s not right then, it will be (an issue in volleyball eventually).
“It’s an evolving process with transgender, and non-binary individuals. All policies should be updated frequently.”
Disregard the political talk-show pundits; the issue of transgender athletes in sports is not that big of a deal, but for the competitors, and their parents, it is.
It’s why the NCAA should do something about it.
This story was originally published April 2, 2022 at 5:32 PM.
