When a campaign wants to achieve wider changes they almost always pick a focused area that draws attention to the wider issues. If changes are won here then it becomes almost impossible to resist it in other places. For a whole host of reasons when it comes to western secular societies and transgender people, that area is elite sport.

The battle is hotly contested. On the 2nd October Stephen McAlpine wrote about “the announcement by nine elite sports bodies in Australia, to the inclusion of trans athletes in their elite team should they meet the standard.” This is a one-way street, by the way, it is the inclusion of transwomen (born male) because it’s virtually impossible for transmen (born female) to be included in elite teams.

Yet on the 9th October “World Rugby, the global governing body for rugby union, announced that it would bar transgender women—people born male, but who identify as women—from playing in the international women’s game.”

The transactivists have the powerful weapons of the creed of our day on their side “inclusion” and the repeated mantra that “transwomen are women” without having to define what a woman actually is.

As The Economist says,

Start with the size of that advantage. Sports science confirms what common experience suggests: most males are bigger, stronger and faster than most females. They have bigger muscles, bigger hearts and bigger lungs, as well as a greater capacity to transport and use oxygen, stronger bones and tougher ligaments. The advantage that all this grants varies from sport to sport, from around 10% in running to more than 30% in weightlifting (see chart). But even at the lower end of the scale, it is enough of a difference that some talented male teenagers—despite having yet to finish puberty—can outperform the best female athletes in the world.

And that’s where elite sports heads on down to lower levels and eventually recreational sport.

Connecticut offers a vivid example of this. Since 2017 two transgender athletes—biological males who identify as women—have between them won 15 state championships that were once held by nine different girls. When they started racing as girls they had not begun hormone treatment. But research suggests that even those who have gone through testosterone suppression retain advantages of strength and muscle mass. “It is so demoralising, running for second place,” says 16-year-old Alanna Smith, a highly competitive sprinter and one of the girls challenging the state policy. “I worry that women are going to become spectators of their own sports.” Transgender boys, meanwhile, often attest that it becomes easier to compete against males once they have had “top surgery” (a mastectomy) and taken testosterone.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/09/05/the-battle-over-trans-athletes-in-american-schools-heats-up

And this is where the ideology of the day is showing its own internal inconsistency. You can’t be inclusive AND be fair.

Now sports are always a combination of inherited competitive advantage, hard work and talent. Usain Bolt worked hard but he didn’t have to do anything to be 6’5. So you’ll hear trans arguments saying this is just like that. In which case they shouldn’t have any problem if we eliminated women’s sport entirely and they can compete in a single category called ‘sport’. But that’s not what they really want. The bigger goal for them here is to try and bully their view that transwomen are women into total acceptance and sport is a massive obstacle to achieving that goal.

If I was to guess then I think World Rugby will find it hard to hold their position. They are likely to come under massive pressure to change despite the science being on their side. This is the world we live in. So what should the church do? Andrew Bunt makes the points well.

We need to talk about identity. A lot. (Regular readers of Think will not be surprised to hear me say that!) The clash between Christianity and culture on sexuality and gender centres on the issue of identity. We must help people to see this and show how God offers a better answer to our search for identity. We are not how we feel (which can change, be unclear, and be bad) and we are not who we say we are (which puts an almost unbearable weight on us, asking us to make our own choice (out of nothing) on one of the most fundamental and life-impacting questions of life). We are who God says we are (which offers a solid, stable and life-giving identity and takes the pressure off us and puts it onto him).

We need to affirm the goodness of authority. Self-ID rejects the authority of the body and of medical professionals. Abuses of authority have created a huge distrust of all authority. Many people, especially young people, can’t fathom how any external authority can ever be a good thing. We need to help them see that when used well, authority is life-giving not oppressive or destructive, and we need to introduce them to the one who has ultimate authority and yet laid aside his own rights and position to serve them. This is an authority we can trust, an authority that is good for us.

We need to affirm the goodness of the physical world and especially the body. In a world where life is increasingly lived in the non-physical world that is the internet, we must continue to affirm and demonstrate the goodness of the physical world and of our own bodies, the very place in which God speaks to us about who we are as men and women.

https://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/learning_from_self_id

Now I have a worldview where differences can be celebrated and not obliterated, where we can rejoice over the achievements of men and women.

What I’m trying to say and to demonstrate is that ‘equal but different’ exists and sometimes it can be good and sometimes we celebrate it, rise up on our feet and shout our loudest for it. I want to cheer on these remarkable, amazing women. And there are women in my church who, in different ways are just as remarkable, amazing and strong and sometimes it’s the difference and not the sameness that allows me to see it for what it is.