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Cliff Owen

After his party’s election defeat on Nov. 5, Rep. Seth Moulton (Massachusetts) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/us/politics/democrats-kamala-harris.html" target=_blank>offered some blunt advice</a>: “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. … I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

Mr. Moulton’s remarks sparked an immediate backlash within his own political camp. His campaign manager <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4981767-moulton-aide-resigns-transgender-athletes/" target="_blank">quit</a>. A state legislator <a href="https://x.com/MannyCruz_MA/status/1855072760877174875" target="_blank">accused him</a> of “scapegoating transgender youth.” A city council member in Salem, Massachusetts, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/sports/democrat-rep-seth-moulton-gets-calls-resign-accused-betrayal-speaking-out-against-trans-athletes" target="_blank">called for him to resign</a>. The Bay State’s governor, Maura Healey, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/11/12/metro/maura-healey-seth-moulton-trans-athletes-politics/" target="_blank">opined</a> that Mr. Moulton was “playing politics with people.” Even Tufts University briefly got in on the act when David Art, chair of the political science department, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-a-tufts-u-department-found-itself-in-a-spat-with-a-congressman-over-transgender-rights" target="_blank">reportedly</a> called Mr. Moulton’s office and told him not to contact the university to recruit interns in the future, though Tufts quickly <a href="https://x.com/sarahnferris/status/1856398663913738665?s=46" target="_blank">clarified</a> that “we have not — and will not — limit internship opportunities with his office.”

Trans women’s participation in sports raises thorny questions about fairness — but that should not preclude Mr. Moulton from speaking his mind. Trans people deserve to be treated with dignity, and the law should protect them from discrimination in areas such as employment and housing. But the realities of human biology raise legitimate questions about any notion that trans women should always and everywhere be treated exactly like cisgender women.

In athletic competition, male puberty confers significant advantages. While those biological differences vary by skill and sport, <a href="https://journals.lww.com/acsm-essr/fulltext/2023/07000/sex_differences_in_athletic_performance_.2.aspx?context=featuredarticles&collectionid=2" target=_blank>a 2023 paper</a> by medical researchers in the United States and Italy noted that “it is well established that the best males always outperform the best females when the sport relies on muscle power, muscle endurance, or aerobic power.” The hormone therapy that many trans women take <a href="https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577" target=_blank>reduces</a> some of those advantages over time, but research into how much those advantages can be mitigated, and over what time frame, <a href="https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/58/11/586" target=_blank>is still ongoing</a>. Other advantages, such as height, are fixed by the end of puberty. This poses obvious fairness and safety questions.

Notice that we say “questions.” The public <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/23727322231197583" target=_blank>needs more and better research</a> to make those decisions. But unless the data show that transitioning can fully erase the effects of male puberty, the country will also need a frank and open debate about the trade-offs between inclusion on the one hand and safety and fairness on the other.

And yet too often, efforts have been made to avoid or prevent discussion of those trade-offs by labeling debate inherently transphobic. This is not how a healthy democracy makes decisions.

However fervently Mr. Moulton’s critics disagree with him, they do not speak for the majority: A 2023 Gallup poll <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate-sports-participation.aspx" target=_blank>showed</a> that almost 70 percent of Americans think sports participation should follow birth sex, not gender identity. Pressuring Democratic politicians to side with the minority, without giving sufficient space to the other side’s argument, is a recipe for irresolution and resentment.

Persuasion is the stuff from which long-term majorities are made. Though the battle over trans inclusion is frequently compared to the same-sex marriage debate, there are two key differences: Society had a long and robust debate over marriage equality, and there was no reasonable doubt about the merits. Same-sex marriage was <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx" target="_blank">already winning the debate</a> by the time the Supreme Court decided <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556" target="_blank">Obergefell v. Hodges</a> in 2015, making it legal across the country. That victory has proved durable. Since Obergefell, support for same-sex marriage has risen from 58 percent <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx" target="_blank">to 69 percent</a>.

In a decade or two, we might look back and wonder how we could have ever doubted that trans women are entitled to compete in women’s sports such as swimming and boxing. But it is also possible that, after more data and more debate, history’s verdict will go to those who now argue that certain spaces, where strength and size matter most, should be reserved for cisgender women. We cannot predict whose argument will prevail. We can only say that no one — and certainly no political party — is entitled to win this debate by default.

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