Welcome, everyone, to our newest series: Winning the Argument! This series of articles will break down trending and evergreen topics in politics and equip you with the knowledge you need to defend yourself against common arguments of the left.
While the left loves to play the blame game, one of the most frustrating accusations often thrown at conservatives is that we are “anti-woman.” Ironically, many of the leading ladies who paved the way for women’s rights in the U.S. were conservative by today’s standards. Susan B. Anthony was famously pro-life. And it was the Republican party that supported women’s suffrage when passing the 19th amendment, not the Democratic party.
Conservative women are often ignored by pop culture and mainstream media because to be pro-woman you have to be liberal… right?
Not so. Modern liberalism and the Democratic Party, which fashions itself as the “pro-woman” side, is diminishing womanhood. We saw this when Democrat-supported Supreme Court nominee, now Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson was unable to define what a woman is. It’s further evidenced by the Biden Administration replacing the word mothers with birthing people in its 2022 fiscal year budget. With no definitional basis (i.e., “what is a woman?”), how can you claim to be pro- anything you don’t know the meaning of?
The most recent cultural debate about the transgender movement reveals the Democratic Party is abandoning women. How can conservatives defend themselves against attacks that they are not pro-woman? We must show that the left is not just abandoning women; they are attempting to erase them altogether.
Here are 5 points for winning the argument.
1. Transgender ideology disproportionately harms… women.
Women are now reduced to “birthing people,” but the Biden administration is not referring to men as “fertilizers.” That would be a fair and equal reduction, but of course, today’s liberal ideology is not attempting to erase men.
Modern liberalism and cancel culture has targeted men in a myriad of ways and will continue to do so. One need only look so far as the recent Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial to realize the “believe all women” trope was ridiculous all along. Believing someone based solely on their sex rather than due process hurts honest men and delegitimizes genuine abuse testimonies.
But while liberal feminists have been historically labeled as “man-haters” (and certainly not all feminists fit this stereotype), today’s liberalism is anything but man-hating. It’s worse: today’s liberal ideologues espouse women’s rights while allowing men to diminish what it means to be a woman. Second-wave feminists understood the line between male and female gender-specific rights. This was critiqued by later feminists who said second-wave feminists were ambivalent or at odds with the rights of women from other races or classes. Today, this critique of feminism insists the movement is extended to trans-women, such that feminism as inclusive of everyone no longer represents true rights for anyone.
Consider J.K. Rowling, whose tweets calling out the transgender movement in light of true feminism have faced considerable backlash. Rowling has been labeled a “TERF” – Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist – for suggesting that gender transition surgeries can be dangerous, or that the definition of a woman is not open to interpretation. Rowling is a woman and identifies as a feminist, yet she is excluded from the mainstream for speaking on women’s issues. If modern “feminism” redefines gender, who can it claim to stand for? This self-congratulating ideology endorses the erasure of women by allowing men to pretend they can speak not just for, but as, women.
2. Hormone therapy does not erase the physiological advantages men have over women.
Hormone therapy is not sufficient to create a level playing field when biological males compete against biological females. During hormone therapy for gender transitions, most changes occur within the first year of treatment with slower changes happening over time. The physiological advantages men have over women cannot be erased by suppressing testosterone or administering estrogen. Studies show even after the first year of administering estrogen, biological males retain greater muscle mass, volume, and strength than females. Further, the top 10% of females can only beat the bottom 10% of men in hand grip tests, which is one of the most widely used markers for strength.
Leftists claim that technique and hand-eye coordination are just as important as strength when it comes to athletic advantage. Yet this issue is not about better training – an unfair advantage in sports is one that cannot be overcome, no matter the effort. There is a 10-12% performance gap between males and females in most sports, and it hasn’t narrowed as women train harder. In one 2017 study, boys under the age of eighteen across multiple skill levels in track and field still outranked the very best “elite” women’s track and field stars.
Even if men undergo hormone treatment, they have major structural and biological advantages that cannot be “reversed.” It’s simple: biology matters and women cannot be boiled down to hormone levels.
3. Biological males continue to dominate in female competitions.
A fair chance of success is closed off to women before the competition has even begun. We saw this most recently when Lia Thomas, a biological male identifying as female, shattered records in two swimming events at the University of Pennsylvania. Thomas went on to dominate in the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Competitions, placing first in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event last March.
This not only diminishes the accolades and accomplishments of girls who have trained for years but strips them of scholarship and professional opportunities. At the 2019 Connecticut Track & Field State Championships, high school athlete Selina Soule competed against two biological males. The biological male athletes won first and second place in the 55-meter dash. Instead of qualifying for the New England regionals, where she could have performed in front of college scouts, Selina was forced to sit on the sidelines.
Such wins don’t just stop at the high school and college levels. Trans athletes are breaking world records in women’s professional sports. Rachel McKinnon set a women’s world record at the 2019 Masters Track Cycling World Championships. McKinnon was born a biological male and transitioned to a female at the age of 29.
Whether or not transgender athletes win medals or take titles, biological men qualifying for women’s championships deprives other women. It denies women a place on the team that should be available to them. A woman who trained to qualify for the Olympics for years is denied that place when a biological male ranks above her thanks to inherent advantages.
4. Allowing biological males into female-designated spaces sets us back decades in women’s rights.
2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, which has historically advanced opportunities for female achievement in education and sports. According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, prior to Title IX, just one in 27 girls participated in school sports. Today, that number is two in five girls. That is because Title IX opened up girls-designated sports teams, allowing women to compete on a level playing field. The left claims allowing transgender athletes to compete in female competitions is about avoiding gender discrimination. Yet forcing females to compete against biological males denies them equal opportunity and therefore protection under the law.
Female-designated sports teams allow women an equal opportunity to compete. This is not based on a culture-bound notion that males and females must compete separately; it is based on unchanging biology. The ACLU argues that requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams based on their sex at birth is the same as banning them from athletic competition altogether. But equal opportunity is not just about gender identity or preference. It is about the law protecting fair competition to the greatest extent possible – not to ensure an equal outcome, but a fair chance. Conservatives can flip the ACLU’s argument the other way: requiring biological females to compete against biological males is the same as stripping them of athletic opportunities altogether.
5. The transgender sports controversy silences women.
Sadly, this fight doesn’t end with sports. The left is setting a precedent that says men can replace women and no one will do anything. The transgender sports controversy shuts the door on female rights by silencing women. One mother of a female NCAA competitor wrote anonymously that girls are “frightened” to speak up against competing with biological males. Coaches and schools often discourage any public statements from competitors regarding this issue. It’s not the Right telling women they have no place in the public sphere; it’s the Left.
To date, sixteen states have enacted laws to save women’s sports. South Carolina was the latest to do so, requiring athletes in K-12 and higher education to participate on teams concurrent with the sex listed on their birth certificate.
Conservatives are the true champions of women’s rights. Leftist ideology is attempting to turn the tide on long-standing protections for women, but you can’t sustain politics on an ever-changing basis. Greater still, fundamental rights cannot be sustained by ideology. While ideology will always conform to the whims of the day, steadfast truths do not. Next time someone tells you conservatives do not have women’s best interests in mind, remind them that conservatives are and always have been the defenders of true womanhood.