To the editor: When will progressives be taught to defuse the GOP’s final wedge subject 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 high school, as conservative protests grow,” 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 folks — they seemingly 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 folks is the suitable factor to do. However within the sports activities world, the time is just not but ripe.
Edgar M. Martinez, Orcutt, Calif.
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To the editor: I’m a post-surgery trans individual. 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 through medical means. WPATH intends to guard trans folks from the potential hazard of starting their transition too quickly or when doing so might not be of their greatest pursuits.
Maybe the WPATH requirements might be utilized (in California) to, for example, boys who want to be a part of women’ sports activities groups or use girls’s altering services.
Hormone alternative remedy will nullify many male energy benefits. It’s ludicrous {that a} boy would undergo hormone alternative remedy for the suitable to make use of a girls’s restroom.
Whereas I don’t assist extra obstacles to folks going through an already troublesome course of, maybe kids must be checked out in a unique gentle.
Trish Kelly, Corona
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To the editor: We may guarantee equity by following boxing’s mannequin. Boxers compete inside their weight courses. Sure, boxers are additionally sorted by intercourse, however that’s a unique matter. Most of us don’t wish to see males punching girls, no matter weight.
Let’s do the equal in different sports activities the place gender identification has turn into a difficulty. In swimming and operating, for instance, athletes might be categorised by muscle mass or no matter different traits are deemed related. An athlete’s gender identification wouldn’t matter.
In athletics, gender is only a proxy for the traits that really make a distinction. Let’s get rid of the proxy and type by the related traits.
Robert Silberg, Los Angeles
