While we’ve covered this topic here extensively, it’s interesting to see how public opinion seems to have mostly stagnated on the issue of transgender athletes competing in competitive girls’ and women’s sports. There’s been a significant backlash, particularly among professional female athletes, but LGBT activists dominate so much of the ongoing media discussion that I’d been wondering how much it was sinking in. Well, according to the most recent Rasmussen polling, they’re not making the sale. A slim majority flatly oppose the idea, while less than one in three think male-to-female “transitioned” athletes should be allowed to compete with biological (or more properly, “actual”) girls and women. (Washington Times)

A Rasmussen Reports poll released Friday found that 51% of U.S. adults surveyed opposed allowing athletes compete on the basis of their gender identity, including biological males who participate in women’s and girls’ sports. Only 29% supported “allowing transgender students to participate on the sports teams of the gender they identify with,” while 20% were undecided, the survey said. The results of the poll, taken Oct. 31-Nov. 2, were virtually identical to a Rasmussen survey released in June, which found only 28% favored allowing transgender students “to participate on the sports team of the gender they identify with,” while 54% were opposed.

The way that activists frequently attempt to twist the topic is to wrap all gay and lesbian rights issues in with the very narrow discussion of males “identifying” as females intersecting with the reality of biological gender in society. For example, if you ask people if transgender individuals should be allowed to express themselves as they wish, call themselves by any pronouns they like and have equal opportunity in employment and other aspects of public life, the vast majority of people will agree. What consenting adults do with their own bodies and how they speak is entirely up to them.

But when those rights come into conflict with the rights of others, the story changes. In addition to opposition to the sports question, the same survey found that a slim majority still don’t want transgender individuals using the restrooms, locker rooms and showers designated for the opposite of their birth gender. (A significant percentage remain unsure.)

At the other end of the scale in terms of competitive sports, we can probably learn a lot from the story of Mya Kretzer, a female high school wrestler from McPherson, Kansas. She loved wrestling, but the state of Kansas didn’t recognize that as an official competitive sport for girls. Kretzer joined the boys’ team just to be able to compete, but the hill was simply too steep to climb if she wanted to be a state champion and get a chance to compete in college. (WaPo)

But no matter how much she improved, Kretzer soon realized she would never have a realistic chance to become a state champion. She could compete and enter any tournament she chose. But because Kansas didn’t recognize girls’ wrestling as an official sport, she would have to beat the best boys in her weight class to win a state title — a virtual impossibility given the greater strength and muscle mass boys tend to develop as they get older. What girls needed, she believed, was to have a sport of their own. Achieving that goal came to define her high school wrestling career.

Kretzer’s conclusion was one that had already been reached across much of the country. Girls and women need a sport of their own. And that reality is undermined when they suddenly are forced into competition against boys identifying as girls with distinct, natural athletic advantages. And the results of such gender-bending in competitive sports speak for themselves