To the editor: When will progressives study to defuse the GOP’s final wedge difficulty of transphobia? Does anybody suppose that Franklin D. Roosevelt would have secured the presidency for Democrats by advocating for racial integration in skilled sports activities? Not an opportunity. (“Tensions brew over trans athletes at Riverside highschool, as conservative protests develop,” Dec. 20)
After FDR died, President Truman issued the landmark 1948 govt order that desegregated the armed forces. That auspicious transfer served to combine the bigger society, together with skilled sports activities, inside a couple of years.
Had Democrats advocated for 3 separate sports activities competitors classes — for males, girls and transgender individuals — they doubtless would have regained management of Congress and retained the presidency within the 2024 election. They’d have been ideally positioned to enact legal guidelines to guard transgender Individuals.
Advocating for transgender individuals is the appropriate factor to do. However within the sports activities world, the time will not be but ripe.
Edgar M. Martinez, Orcutt, Calif.
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To the editor: I’m a post-surgery trans particular person. Please entertain this opinion based mostly on expertise, if not logic alone.
The World Skilled Assn. for Transgender Well being, or WPATH, supplies a rigorous course of in its requirements for look after transitioning by way of medical means. WPATH intends to guard trans individuals from the potential hazard of starting their transition too quickly or when doing so will not be of their greatest pursuits.
Maybe the WPATH requirements may very well be utilized (in California) to, for example, boys who want to be part of ladies’ sports activities groups or use girls’s altering services.
Hormone substitute remedy will nullify many male power benefits. It’s ludicrous {that a} boy would undergo hormone substitute remedy for the appropriate to make use of a girls’s restroom.
Whereas I don’t assist further boundaries to individuals dealing with an already tough course of, maybe youngsters ought to be checked out in a unique mild.
Trish Kelly, Corona
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To the editor: We may guarantee equity by following boxing’s mannequin. Boxers compete inside their weight lessons. Sure, boxers are additionally sorted by intercourse, however that’s a unique matter. Most of us don’t need to see males punching girls, no matter weight.
Let’s do the equal in different sports activities the place gender id has change into a difficulty. In swimming and operating, for instance, athletes may very well be labeled by muscle mass or no matter different traits are deemed related. An athlete’s gender id wouldn’t matter.
In athletics, gender is only a proxy for the traits that truly make a distinction. Let’s put off the proxy and type by the related traits.
Robert Silberg, Los Angeles
