Transgendered (Male) Athletes in Women Sports

While the 2026 World Cup was underway in North America, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling, which is to say, a judgment rationally argued, siding with member-states that did not permit “Y chromosome” students in public schools to play in on “XX chromosome” sports teams. Not being a writer who fecklessly evades controversial topics for fear of turning away some readers, I will attempt to tackle the jurisprudence and ethics of male athletes who self-identify as women playing in women sports such as American football in public schools.

Because gender language had become so muddled by enough people in at least some member-states even just for ideological purposes, which is to say, to impose, I resort to reductionism in highlighting chromosomes, which, after all, are empirical facts, and, at least as of 2026 when the Court’s opinion was announced, the “Y” chromosome stays for life. This is not to castigate or dismiss individuals whose respective mental states include a close affiliation and even a group-identification sense of self with the other gender. The cultural stereotypes of the widths of masculinity and femininity had arguably contracted too narrowly since at least the eighteenth century in the West that a young, slender man with long, straight hair and a high-pitch voice in 2026 would likely conclude that he is not masculine and even feminine even though everything about him that is natural/biological would by definition be masculine (i.e., consistent with male hormones and the related Y chromosome). This point should not be taken as reductionistic concerning gender-identification, but I submit that the point is often overlooked.

In ancient Greece, unlike in Rome, bisexual or gay men who felt sexual pleasure in submitting in being penetrated by a penis were regarded as just as masculine as men who penetrate anally or vaginally. Perhaps Carl Jung would say that for the ancient Greeks, both genders were regarded as containing animus and anima, albeit proportioned differently. I contend that a man who is conscious of his anima has a fuller sense of himself than a man whose self-awareness only consists of animus. Again, this is not to explain or account for every transexual person, but, rather, my intent is to widen the discussion even if doing so is beyond the tolerable narrow limits of some ideologues who presume themselves and their partisans alone as entitled to proclaim opinion as fact in contradistinction to the mere opinions across the aisle.[1]

In terms of the U.S. Supreme Court, the anima in a male person and the animus in a woman, is like a dissent to a majority opinion. As a society, we ignore dissents at our peril, especially as several majority opinions, such as “separate but equal,” have been overturned. In her dissent in West Virginia vs. Becky P. Jackson, Justice Sotomayor claims that the majority was “wrong to reject Jackson’s equal-protection” (14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) claim.[2] Sotomayor admitted, however, “We just simply do not know scientifically that transgender students pose dangers,”[3] meaning that such students have physical advantages athletically over biological women in playing in sports like (American) football, where body-size and muscle-mass do matter at the line of scrimmage. According to the Huffington Post, Sotomayor writes in her dissent that the facts show that transgender “women” do not have an “inherent athletic advantage” over (biological) women, but a strident ideology is indeed capable of inventing facts for itself while accusing the other side of ignoring facts.[4] That the X chromosome has over 1,000 genes, whereas the Y chromosome carries only 50-200 genes, including the SRY gene, which furnishes instructions for the development of distinctly male genitalia, suggests that women and men are indeed biologically different in a myriad of ways, so the claim that biological males do not have advantages in the conduct of sport may be dogmatic rather than based on fact. This is not to say that every man is physically stronger, as the 1970s tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billy Jean King demonstrated.

Perhaps the Court’s decision comes down to the prime facie assertion that people with penises and testicles are by definition exogenous to women sports. Furthermore, the equal protection clause is not violated because nobody who was born with a penis (and still carries the Y chromosome) can be on a women-only (XX chromosomes) team. Just as in labeling a film’s lesbian sex-scene as homosexual, or gay, rather than heterosexual because two vaginas and no penises are involved and the mental states of the persons in the scene go only so far and thus do not alter the label, so too do such states go only so far in terms of whether a person qualifies to play in women sports. Not even if one person in such a scene has had her female breasts (“boobs”) removed and is taking testosterone and sports a mustache—neither boobs nor facial hair counting as sexual genitalia—is such a scene heterosexual, for the sexual genitalia of the two people are the same, which is to say, homo rather than hetero. Similarly, women sports includes only people who were born with the same (XX) genitalia, regardless of how the people have decided to appear externally and what mental state they have. The underlying culprit is ideology, as per its inherently expansive propensity at the expense of even legitimate constraints.

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1. A week before the Court’s decision, while I was volunteering to work at the 2026 Gay film festival in San Francisco so I could include some examples of “gay cinema” in a forthcoming book I was writing on philosophy and theology through the medium of film, I casually mentioned to two young women that the film shown had a lesbian sex scene. “That’s heterosexual sex!” one of the young (presumably lesbian) women angrily declared to me as if her fact trumped what was merely an opinion on my part. “No,” I retorted, “a sex scene with two vaginas is not heterosexual.” To my shock, the two women dismissed this fact by stating, as if declaring a fact of their own making, “No, it doesn’t work that way.” Translation: two vaginas as a sex act can be heterosexual if one of the women self-identifies as a man. This simply is not true; a person’s mental state is not sufficient to change the label. What surprised me the next week was how many young people pushed back against my rather obvious claim that a sex scene involving two vaginas is not heterosexual, as if the claim were suddenly disputable without regard to the definitions of the words, homosexual and heterosexual. One young man even repeatedly shouted at me at a coffee shop, “You’re an idiot!” To be so dismissive of definitions may involve an underlying troubled mental state, as well as arrogance and narcissism. Ideological angst and anger do not trump definitions. The sheer presumption, even more than the flashes of anger unleased on me, shocked me, for such presumption is like arrogance on stilts during a flood. Ideology itself had become a problem in the far left quarter of San Francisco by 2026 as evinced by the presumed entitlement to not only overreach, but also lash out in spiteful anger in verbally attacking anyone who is an obstacle to the overly expansive sense of self and the presumption to declare facts out of what is actually ideological opinion as a fact. Postscript on the Gay “Frameline” festival in San Francisco: the vengeance of the two young lesbians led Cicily, who managed the festival’s operations that year to write a hostile email to me accusing me of having spoken inappropriately. She had not even contacted me first to ask what I had actually said to the two complaining, vindictive lesbians. “The film contains a lesbian sex scene” is in no sense inappropriate, especially at a gay film festival! Besides accusing me of having spoken inappropriately during my first shift, Cicily was stupid enough to send me the harsh email as I was en route to my last shift. Accordingly, I was able to write a brief rebuttal and turn back (to my own work!) rather than continue on to the theater to freely give my labor to such a sordid, resentful, and too ideologically-driven group. Saying that a sex scene is not heterosexual because it involves two vaginas and no penises is not inappropriate; in fact, it is an accurate statement. San Francisco “pride” had gone too far, moreover, in its ideological intolerance and vindictiveness against anyone objecting to the "Castro norms" so I voted with my feet the next week by not watching its parade downtown. In the Castro, for example, tips at bars, fast food places, and even at coffee shops were, according to several gay men and at least one harsh employee, required by the very employees who receive them. “It’s the Castro standard,” a young man sitting at a table near mine scolded me before he dismissively walked away from the Poesia coffee shop with his friend while making it clear to me that he was laughing at me for having complained about a barista there who had angrily demanded a tip. Self-righteous immaturity would likely continue in that district. Another “Castro standard” callously and selfishly imposed by many gay men there on their boyfriends and even husbands was the presumed right to have separate sex with other men even with romantic attachment because, as one jejune gay man told me, “everyone here does it.” But even common practice is not itself an ethical rationale according to David Hume; the sub-culture reigning in the Castro (gay) district could simply have been dysfunctional, sustained in its narcissistic pathology by unresolved psychological issues prolonging self-absorbed adolescence. Bad air!

2. Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst, “Supreme Court Upholds State Laws Banning Transgender Girls and Women from School Athletic Teams,” APnews.com, June 30, 2026.
3. Ibid.
4. Sebastian Murdock, “Sotomayor: ‘Facts Do Not Matter’ to Supreme Court after It Upholds Trans Athlete Ban,” The Huffington Post, June 30, 2026.

Turkey on Gay Obscenity

On 8 April, 2026, eleven leaders of a Turkish gay-rights group faced a judicial trial on charges of “obscenity” and “violating the protection of the family.”[1] These charges are of course heavily subjective and even controversial, especially well into the twenty-first century by which time gay and lesbian couples were raising children in family units so the issue in Turkey could be said to be which type of family warrants protection. The obscenity charge had to do with the fact that two men or two women kissing romantically in public still made a significant proportion of people uncomfortable in Turkey. Turkish authorities had deemed photos showing gay couples kissing and put on social media to be obscene. That homosexuality was not illegal there at the time rendered the trial perplexing to many in the gay community in Turkey and elsewhere in the world. Perhaps even more perplexing is the fact that the constitution of Turkey contained an article on protecting family values and that gay couples raising children were exempted from even being deemed families.

The gay association claimed that the trial was “an attack on freedom of expression and freedom of association.”[2] In particularly harsh terms, the group also called the trial “a form of dehumanization.”[3] Whereas expression and association are jurisprudential terms, dehumanization evokes human rights being severely violated. I contend that none of these claims gets at the underlying issue, which is that, just as in climate change wherein some regions (e.g., the poles) have been warming faster than others (e.g., the equator), in any society some parts change more than others, such that the latter can be expected as a matter of human nature to resist surges in the former. Whereas people in a gay bar in San Francisco were used to seeing men kiss each other, the same cannot be said in many cities in Turkey. Both being accustomed and being uncomfortable are valid human reactions to the fact that change does not happen at the same rate across a given society. In a healthy society, the gays who are on the forefront in displaying their homosexual affection in gay neighborhoods naturally tone down the visuals  in other neighborhoods, and heterosexuals not used to such displays try to tolerate them under the correct supposition that culture changes. In an unhealthy society, gays intentionally push their homosexuality where they know it is not as accepted, and people unaccustomed to the visible gay affection seek to punish the gays for what is only natural affection for gays.

A man can fall in love with another man, and a woman can fall in love with a woman. Bisexual men and women who have falling in love with people of both genders attest that the love is the same in substance. Also, falling in love with a personality is not the same as lusting after a particular sexual organ; indeed, people fall in love before having had sex with the beloved. In fact, anyone who has falling in love would acknowledge that the sex pales in comparison with the strong emotional attachment being felt. Selfless, or other-focused love is possible in human nature itself, and thus whether the person being put first is of the same or the other gender does not alter the qualities of the love because it is oriented to personality, not to sexual organs (though having access to preferred organs is no small matter). 

Furthermore, a gay couple can truly love a child being raised because the parent-child love is the same, regardless of what the parents are doing sexually (at least one would hope the two are separate!). Just as a heterosexual step-father or step-mother can come to love a nonbiological child of the wife or husband, a gay spouse can love the biological child the spouse. That is to say, gay couples can indeed form genuine families, and the love therein is what the Turkish constitution could ideally have promoted and protected were love itself valued over hate by the government officials behind the trial.

That which should arguably be excoriated is not homosexuality per se, but the sordid elements culturally that can render the gay “community” as anything but warm and fuzzy. I am referring to the privileging of anonymous sex, even in imposing "open" relationships with separate sex with or without emotional attachment, as if monogamy were anti-woke and toxic. Lying, in cheating on a boyfriend or husban sexually, eclipses emotional intimacy and trust that could otherwise embrace gay couples and render them as more legitimate from the standpoint of heterosexuals. Also problematic is the utter slicing ruthlessness with which gay men reject other gay men not only sexually, but also emotionally. The narrowness of a hypertropic sex drive be exaggerated by an enabling cultural norm in the gay "community" that it is fine to "block" online or "flake" on showing up for sex as soon as a "hotter" guy is found for casual sex (i.e., "hooking up"). 

In short, responsibility, which is required for any genuine romantic relationship, may be a recessive value in the gay "community" whereas the primacy of momentary pleasure is privileged beyond its worth at the expense of emotional intimacy or connection. It may be that for too many gay men, the act of gay sex is more important to them than emotional intimacy and establishing trust and connection. Moreover, it may be that for too many gay men, "falling in love" is sex-centric rather than based on personality. I suspect that gay culture has been tacitly undergirding this toxic misordered concupiscence. If so, I would not be surprised if loneliness has been rife in the gay "community." 

My point is that rather than thrown “obscene” and anti-family charges at homosexuality itself, genuine romantic love that a same-sex couple can have can be distinguished from the more primitive gay lifestyle. Societies that make this distinction would be able to relegate Turkey’s approach to punishing gay people as utterly crude and primitive, which are labels I would apply to the gay men who use sex to obviate commitment as if the sexual urges of gay men are such that those urges are different or stronger and thus cannot be resisted. The belief that such urges should not be resisted, even if doing so evicerates the integrity of intimate romantic relationships, is more troubling not only because people, whether gay or heterosexual, who live out that belief are functioning as animalistic primitives rather than as responsible adult-humans. Perhaps one day Christopher Robin of Winnie the Pooh lore will finally grow up, and associate intimately with other humans rather than only or primarily with more primative animals that enable his childishness. Perhaps Christopher will move on from his trophy animals, or perhaps he is naively their trophy. 

Turkey’s approach of lashing out against gay visuals in 2026 was itself jejune, and thus did not evince sufficient maturity to facilitate the maturation of humanity’s homosexual population as it was shifting from informal relationships and the privileging of anonymous sex to the emotional intimacy that is only possible romantically in sustained relationships, including but not limited to marriage. 

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Turkey Puts 11 Leaders of LGBTQ+ Rights Association on Trial for ‘Obscenity,’” Euronews.com, 8 April, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Gay Pride and Evangelical Christianity

Taylor Swift, an American singer and cultural icon in 2023, spoke “out against anti-queer legislation” during a concert in early June. “We can’t talk about Pride Month without talking about pain. There have been so many harmful pieces of legislation that have put [gay people] at risk. It’s painful for everyone. Every ally. Every loved one . . . ,” she said[1]. So much hurt. This motivated me to volunteer to carry a full-size gay flag in a gay Pride parade until the end of the route even though I am not gay. When I arrived in the morning, I thought the issue was political; by the time the parade began, religion had trumped the political. A small but vocal group of evangelical Christians and a larger group of young women wearing and carrying gay flags (in part to hide the Christians) were shouting at each other in utter futility of noise. What if people would use religion to dissolve the religious and political anger and even tension instead of stoking them? Both sides missed an opportunity.

The full essay is at "Gay Pride and Evangelical Christianity."

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1. Shruti Rajkumar, “Taylor Swift Breaks Silence And Condemns Anti-LGBTQ Bills During Eras Tour,” The Huffington Post, June 3, 2023.

Off Target: Corporate Spending as "Speech" against Gay Rights

In a 5-4 decision on January 21, 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that federal restrictions on corporate spending in elections constituted a violation of free speech. Critics called it wrong to equate corporate “speech” with individual speech and said the ruling would allow special-interest money to flood election campaigns. The bipartisan nature of the opposition to this ruling is striking in these largely partisan times. The court’s ruling is opposed, respectively, by 76, 81 and 85 percent of Republicans, independents and Democrats; and by 73, 85 and 86 percent of conservatives, moderates and liberals. Majorities in all these groups, ranging from 58 to 73 percent, not only oppose the ruling but feel strongly about it. Even among people who agree at least somewhat with the Tea Party movement, which advocates less government regulation, 73 percent oppose the high court’s rejection of this particular law. In addition to overwhelming opposition to the decision, there’s also bipartisan support for Congress to try to reinstate restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and unions.

So when Target sent a check for $150,000 to MN Forward, a Minnesota-based political group backing a gubernatorial candidate with penchant for opposing gay rights, people wondered what business Target has in taking sides on that issue, even if the group was also pro-business. MN Forward endorsed and was paying for ads for the Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. On Emmer’s website he defines marriage as a “union between one man and one woman” and he has come under fire for his $250 contribution to a Christian rockband that has been known to speak harshly of gays. Emmer told the Minnesota Star Tribune that the controversial rock band “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide,” were “nice people,” following band member Bradlee Dean’s reported comments that Muslim countries that support execution of gays are “more moral than even the American Christians.” To be sure, the managers of Target were not spending their companies’ “free speech” in defense of such a view, but that the wealth qua free speech was nonetheless being spent on a candidate who had made such a comment makes the Target CEO an unwitting accomplice.

Rather than viewing Target managers distancing themselves from Emmer’s view of gays as corporate social responsibility, I contend that the problem lies in taking spending as speech. Put another way, Target would have better stores if it sticked to its knitting, as it were.

Diverting money even to political campaign groups that further a pro-business agenda is off from the business’s main business, which in the case of Target is to sell retail. Besides the collateral damage from unwittingly helping campaigns on issues that are not even pro-business, diverting cash reserves to political campaigns puts corporations in the business of electoral politics, which is another sort of retail. In the case of Target, it is not as though the stores could not be improved from a business standpoint.  Once I accompanied a foreign friend of mine to a Target to return the coat he had given his wife for Christmas. Because he had paid by check, he had only the option, according to the “customer service” employee, of exchanging it. He could not get his money back—though he could have had he paid cash or by credit card. The “reasoning” of Target’s managers was that a check is “like kind” to an exchange voucher.  My friend and I left the store committed not to return, and I have not. Even in terms of influencing electoral politics in a pro-business general direction, Target’s management has plenty else to do closer to home—if indeed it is a home.  Rather than being socially responsible, a company ought to focus on its knitting.  That—doing business well—is the responsible thing to do because it is what a business’s owners expect from the managers of their property. Rather than being able to influence electoral politics beyond their expertise, managers ought to be restrained more by stronger corporate governance. To be sure, managers have a tendency to over-reach. Treating their spending decisions as “speech” only enbles them.

Sources:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2010/02/in-supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-finance-the-public-dissents.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/target-best-buy-fire-campaign-contributions-minnesota-candidate/story?id=11270194