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Transgender Sports: Men and Women Have Physical Differences That No Surgery or Hormone Treatment Can Change

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Kate Hall won the 100m sprint at regionals her sophomore year. But a year later, Hall was beat by Andraya Yearwood, a high school freshman. Yearwood was born male but “identifies” as female. At the time of the race, he had not undergone hormone treatment or surgery to “transition from male to female.”

More Than Testosterone

Much of the debate about “transgender” athletes has focused on testosterone. Consider the NCAA policy for such transgender athletes focuses only on testosterone. According to the NCAA’s policy for men transitioning to women:

A trans female [male transitioning to a female] student-athlete being treated with testosterone suppression medication for Gender Identity Disorder or gender dysphoria and/or Transsexualism, for the purposes of NCAA competition may continue to compete on a men’s team but may not compete on a women’s team without changing it to a mixed team status until completing one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment. (NCAA Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes, 2011)

Notably, a trans male (female identifying as male) does not have to wait a year before competing on a men’s team.

Testosterone plays a big role in athletic performance. But when we start talking about high-performance competition, especially in track and field, small variations make all the difference. These go well beyond testosterone.

Hip Structure and Center of Mass

Some differences can’t be changed, even with surgery and hormone treatments.

One of the major differences between male and female runners is the hip structure along with everything attached to hip movement. It’s not just a matter of having wide or narrow hips. A key difference is the ratio between hip width and femur length. Women tend to have a greater hip width-to-femur length ratio, which leads to greater hip adduction — that is, movement toward the center of the body. This difference has a domino effect that results in small differences in joint rotation and muscle recruitment.

In other words, men and women differ in how the lower parts of their bodies move as a coordinated wholes.

Other Differences

Men also tend to have more fast-twitch muscles than women. According to experts this isn’t something that can change with training. Fast-twitch muscles are what you want for sprinting because they help you explode off the starting line. They also help produce the kind of “anaerobic” energy you need for sprinting . Slow-twitch muscles are good for conserving energy. They’re the kind of muscles you want in a distance race.

Men also tend to have larger internal organs. This sounds like a disadvantage for sprinters, but larger lungs and heart result in more oxygen uptake. The more oxygen you can take in, the more that can be transported to your muscles. VO2max measures an athlete’s maximum oxygen uptake. It’s higher in men than it is in women, even for men and women that have the same body mass and equivalent lean muscle mass. Biologically, men have a higher VO2max, all other things being equal.

As a result, men also tend to have a higher concentration of hemoglobin in their blood than women do. For athletes, that’s an advantage. This is why doping with EPO, a protein that increases your oxygen-carrying hemoglobin, is illegal in sports. A runner who is born male, therefore, has an advantage over most female athletes wanting to run a clean race.

The Body Can’t Be Completely “Reformatted”

Even with surgery, doping, and hormone treatment, you can’t change every piece of your body. The body functions as a cohesive whole. The skeletal system, the size of major internal organs, and one’s center of mass are all fundamental components of the body. We see this in athletes who use steroids. They often sustain injuries because steroids change muscle mass without changing the ligaments and tendons connected to the muscle.

Doctors can change some things about the body. But they can’t “reformat” the body to become something else completely. A biological male is going to have the fundamental structures of a male body. That’s an inherent advantage in many sports.

Subordinating Athletes Who are “Born Female”

Separating men and women in sports has opened the door for many opportunities for women. Title IX has allowed women athletes to attend college on a scholarship and compete at a high level. Women athletes have also served as role models to other women.

Consider some of the great female runners. Joan Benoit Samuelson took gold the first year the women’s marathon was part of the Olympics. Paula Radcliff holds the women’s marathon world record. Jackie Joyner Kersee holds the best heptathlon score and the second farthest women’s long-jump. Florence Griffith Joyner, considered the fastest woman of all time, ran the women’s 100m in 10.49 and the 200m in 21.34.

All these female athletes have made huge contributions to running. Yet even Florence Joyner’s times would not have qualified her for the men’s semi-finals. In fact, the top twenty-five fastest men in 100m have times under 10 seconds, beating Joyner’s time of 10.49.

Of course elite athletes are by definition outside the norm. But there’s something wrong when half of the population has an inherent disadvantage. If biological males can compete against biological females, it won’t be long, especially in elite sports, before males win all the races and hold all the records.

Women will, in effect, but pushed out of competition because they were born with female bodies. Does that make any sense? As Jeff Jacobs asks in his thoughtful article in the Hartford Courant, “What do we tell these girls? A transgender’s journey is more important than your journey?”

Kate Hall showed grace and maturity in the face of disappointment. But how many more young women will have to say what Hall said in response to her defeat, “It’s frustrating … but that’s just the way it is now”? (For more from the author of “Transgender Sports: Men and Women Have Physical Differences That No Surgery or Hormone Treatment Can Change” please click HERE)

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US State Becomes First to Allow Nonbinary on Drivers License

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Oregon became the first U.S. state to allow residents to identify as “nonbinary,” neither male nor female, on their driver licenses and identification cards Thursday in a decision by The Oregon Transportation Commission.

Beginning July 1, Oregonians will be able to choose “X” for sex Instead of “F” or “M” on their licenses and identification cards. Applicants will have to pay replacement or renewal fees.

Transgender and intersex Oregonians say the change validates their identities and makes them safer as they hand over their licenses at restaurants, health clinics and airports. Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles officials say they received little opposition to the change, which they first announced plans to carry out last summer. Of 83 comments, both written and oral, only 12 people opposed the change.

The testimony offered “important insight into some DMV customers that according to one of the witnesses are as common as redheads,” said Tom McClellan, the division administrator for the department. “People didn’t share their testimony. They shared their stories. They told us of their struggles so we would understand the need.” (Read more from “US State Becomes First to Allow Nonbinary on Drivers License” HERE)

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Lefties: Get Used to Your Daughters Losing to Mustached ‘Girls’

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Romans 1.

That’s where we live now. No one forced us to set up camp there; we actually bought tickets and went voluntarily.

We even let our children be the canaries in that ghastly and demonic coal mine.

I know it’s all the rage to complain about helicopter parents hovering over their children’s every move, but we could have used a little more hovering in Connecticut recently. There, a troubled mustached 15-year-old boy who feels pretty won the state 100- and 200-meter dash titles, as a freshman.

Heck, hovering doesn’t even begin to describe what I would have done if my daughter had earned a place to run in that race. I would have gone all Gandalf: “You shall not pass!” I would have made them arrest me out in the middle of that track.

But doing nothing but mindlessly cheering while your daughter’s dreams are being shattered is pretty close to that, I guess. Any word if this dude hit the showers after the race with these girls against their will?

Oh, CNN’s Chris Cuomo called and told them to get over themselves if they don’t want to see any naked roosters in the hen house. Because men who like their Wonder Woman without hairy armpits are the real threat to women’s equality, we’re told. (Certainly not men who enjoy diminishing women’s physical triumphs, before disrobing in front of them and demanding they smile.)

What in God’s name is wrong with us?

This is actually happening. I actually am writing this column. And I am left with the cold, hard truth that if we won’t fight on something as elemental and obvious as boys-can’t-be-girls, we sadly deserve the cultural annihilation to come.

The same feminists who once sang “I am woman, hear me roar” are now strangely silent as opportunities are taken from our daughters — not to mention their hopes and dreams of being the next Mia Hamm, Serena Williams, or a host of other women who paved the way for the next generation’s moment in the sun.

Who needs the heteronormative patriarchy when you’ve got transgender, SJW madness … and the tyranny that comes along with a culture drunk on its own decadence?

My editor, Todd Erzen, has a middle school daughter who is one of the fastest distance runners in the entire country for her age category. Yet, at a recent event that she won handily, the majority of the boys who performed after her beat her time. Why? It’s called testosterone — boys and girls. And knowing that it is called testosterone — and not “patriarchy” — is called “brains.”

Indeed, Connecticut’s boy “girls’ champion” would’ve finished dead last in his rightful categories.

Yet not even almighty science can save us; it will be cast aside by progressives faster than you can say “Christianity” when it doesn’t provide a free pass to the dystopian fever swamp. Just as one example, an old episode of “Bill Nye the Science Guy” was recently edited in order to conveniently conform scientific fact about gender and sex to our current politically correct delusion.

Speaking of brains, here’s more inconvenient science from Dr. Larry Cahill, professor of neurobiology and behavior at UC Irvine. Neuroscience literature shows that the human brain is a sex-typed organ, says Dr. Cahill, with distinct anatomical differences in neural structures and accompanying physiological differences in function. Now that’s some “born this way” you can take to the bank, Lady Gaga.

This Connecticut fiasco is an affront to reason. For, on one hand, progressives say if we believe marriage is between a man and a woman we’re bigots. But then if men steal gold medals from women, they’re a new-age Rosa Parks or something. You have to be devoid of any and all discernment to assert such moral anarchy simultaneously.

Our girls are being told that they don’t matter as much as the boy who dresses up like a girl and beats them. It’s his word against hers. Just keep your mouth shut, and nobody gets hurt … supposedly.

Old and busted are the movies made about the real-life heroines who refused to accept such terms; the new hotness is enjoying the heavy bedazzled hand of your male transgendered oppressors, and their lackluster “feminist” enablers.

Gone are the days when Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, or Sissy Spacek would play the “she stood alone” role; enter the era of Bruce Jenner trading in his decathlon gold for “Tales of Social Justice Dumbassery.” Such as what it’s like to trade in the cover of a Wheaties box for an endorsement deal with CoverGirl.

One size – so to speak – fits all, ladies. Hope you enjoy your participation ribbons, because the medal stand is now reserved for those “women” whose necks must be shaved on the regular. (For more from the author of “Lefties: Get Used to Your Daughters Losing to Mustached ‘Girls'” please click HERE)

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7th Circuit Codifies Transgenderism Into the Constitution

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Well, the political elites believe that it is settled science that the weather has permanently changed for the rest of time because of capitalism, but human sexuality is evidently not settled science. In fact, according to the courts, it is settled science for a man to be a woman.

Last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals became the latest federal appeals court to codify transgenderism into law and the Constitution.

Although Obama’s executive mandates for transgender bathrooms have gone by the wayside (thanks to Attorney General Jeff Sessions overruling the liberal whims of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos), the courts are engaging in their own social transformation on behalf of the defeated Democrats.

In Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District, a unanimous opinion from the three-judge panel ordered a Wisconsin school district to allow a girl to use the boys’ bathroom in school. Following in the footsteps of the Sixth and Fourth Circuits, this Seventh Circuit panel (which included GOP-appointee Ilana Rovner) ruled that the 1972 Title IX education law and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause cover transgenderism as a protected class.

As the courts redefine our national sovereignty, rewrite election laws and redistricting in favor of Democrats, redefine criminal justice law for mass murderers, and mandate publicly funded abortions, they are using their self-acclaimed status as kings to redefine sexuality retroactive to laws and amendments codified long before the sexual-identity movement was in vogue.

In an emotional screed disguised as law, this opinion uses male pronouns to describe a woman with female parts. In any other era, these judges would have been deemed mentally unstable to serve on a bench.

While refusing to recognize biological sex as immutable — or, even significant — the court contended that there is absolutely no disruption or privacy concerns over opposite sexes using the wrong bathrooms:

A transgender student’s presence in the restroom provides no more of a risk to other students’ privacy rights than the presence of an overly curious student of the same biological sex who decides to sneak glances at his or her classmates performing their bodily functions.

The court then appealed to common sense to disregard any remaining privacy concerns as “conjecture and abstraction”!

Why is it I have a sneaking suspicion that when Title IX was drafted in 1972 (much less when the 14th Amendment was drafted in 1867), they completely understood the privacy concerns but would have never fathomed judges maniacally referring to a Y chromosome as an X chromosome?

Amazingly, the legal liberals are the ones with the hypocritical arguments, even according to their own twisted logic. How could this school district be guilty of violating equal protection and engaging in stereotyping for actually applying science equally, and not going along with the deliberate stereotyping requested by the plaintiff?

There is no greater stereotype than saying that a girl, despite being a girl, should be treated like a boy because she acts out in a “manly” way. The entire sexual-identity movement is built upon the very sex stereotypes they want to codify into law but also protect from discrimination.

This is part of a broader hypocrisy in which the transgender lobby is filing lawsuits to apply disability laws to gender-confused individuals — but, on the other hand, are suing on discrimination grounds for stereotyping and recognizing this “disability” as a disability and not as a natural phenomenon.

Either way, the courts will always reach the legal conclusion that best promotes the socially licentious political outcome .. even when the “jurisprudence” is contradictory.

Last year, the Fourth and Sixth Circuits said that transgenderism being codified into civil rights and the Constitution is “settled law,” demonstrating how irremediably broken the courts are. This is not just the Ninth Circuit; we have yet to find a single circuit willing to understand the most immutable laws of nature. Thus, it’s not surprising that almost every court is creating a right for Somalis to immigrate. If marriage and human sexuality are subjective, so are the borders of a nation.

Although the Supreme Court punted the Fourth Circuit case (Grimm v. Gloucester County) because that one was built upon Obama’s obsolete transgender mandate, it is quite clear that another case will end up before the high court within the next year.

Given Justice Anthony Kennedy’s history on this issue — and his penchant for being influenced by growing momentum in the lower courts and the legal profession — it’s fairly safe to say we will be confronted with the transgender version of Obergefell in the near future.

The transgender case comes just two months after the Seventh Circuit codified sexual orientation into Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This circuit, like many others, is drifting more and more to the far left. A number of the GOP appointees, such as Richard Posner and Ilana Rovner, are among the worst offenders.

There are only two reliable originalists on the court (Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes). This is why it’s so important for Trump to immediately fill the two vacancies on the court with known originalists. Even more importantly, this is yet one more reason to make the courts less consequential by reforming their jurisdiction and scope of power. (For more from the author of “7th Circuit Codifies Transgenderism Into the Constitution” please click HERE)

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Transgender Athlete Beats Girls but Would’ve Placed Last Against Boys

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A transgender high school athlete beat girls in the Connecticut track state championship Tuesday, but his time would have placed him last in the boys’ race.

Andraya Yearwood, a freshman at Cromwell High School, placed first in the girls’ 100-meter and 200-meter dash finals against girls from other schools in the region, according to Turtleboy Sports. But his time would have earned him last place in both boys’ competitions.

Yearwood finished the girls’ 100-meter dash with a time of 12.66 seconds and the girls’ 200-meter dash in 26.08 seconds.

The last-place finishers for the boys’ 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, Shayne Beckloff and Terrance Gallishaw, finished the races in 11.73 seconds and 25.59 seconds, respectively.

“It feels really good,” said Yearwood to The Day. “I’m really happy to win both titles … I kind of expected it. I’ve always gotten first, so I expected it to some extent. … I’m really proud of it.”

(Read more from “Transgender Athlete Beats Girls but Would’ve Placed Last Against Boys” HERE)

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Report: Effort to Allow Transgenders in the Military Faces ‘Indefinite Delay’

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An Obama administration effort to allow transgender citizens to serve in the U.S. military is undergoing an intense review by the Pentagon, Military Times reports.

Former President Barack Obama’s directive was issued in June 2016 and gave the services exactly one year to craft policy implementation. The Army and Marine Corps are reportedly the most resistant to the policy’s implementation, and the policy is reportedly now in a period of indefinite delay. The objections however appear to stem from logistical rather than idealogical concerns.

The logistical concerns include a lack of funding for upgraded group showers and changes to service-member’s living quarters. Military officials indicated to Military Times that a host of other procedural issues stood in the way of the policy’s implementation. “It’s not that we’re unsupportive or unwilling to implement it; just that there were administrative matters to be addressed,” the official clarified.

The delay was on full display after two cadets at U.S. service academies were not allowed to commission in their gender identity because no official policy guidance has been issued. One of the cadets from the Air Force Academy is being recommended for appointment to the Air Force civil service, where they can serve as a civilian employee of the Department of Defense. (Read more from “Report: Effort to Allow Transgenders in the Military Faces ‘Indefinite Delay'” HERE)

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Federal Lawsuit Contends Transgenderism Is a Mental Disorder

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A Friday story from Reuters highlights a federal district court’s decision to proceed with a lawsuit from Kate Lynn Blatt – a man who imagines himself a woman – who claims that he has been discriminated against by his employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act because of his condition:

But U.S. District Judge Joseph Leeson avoided ruling on the constitutionality of the ADA, as the plaintiffs had sought, under the legal principle that courts should avoid decisions on constitutional grounds if possible. Being transgender is not considered a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association [APA], but it can give rise to gender dysphoria, a type of anxiety that may require medical treatment. Gender dysphoria forms Blatt’s basis for making a claim under the ADA. Leeson, from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, found that simply being transgender would be insufficient to bring a case, but that gender dysphoria was a medical condition worthy of protection against discrimination.

According to an amicus brief from GLAD – a Massachusetts-based LGBT legal nonprofit – the explicit exclusion of “gender identity disorder” language in the 1990 version of the current law constitutes a violation of trans peoples’ constitutional rights. And that the “updated diagnosis of gender dysphoria (GD) in fact falls outside the scope of that exclusion as defined in the law,” implying that the law should be rewritten by judges as medical opinions shift.

This is where the rhetoric around the issue of transgenderism and employment law gets incredibly muddled.

There is currently another case moving through the federal circuit which makes the claim that being transgender should be held on the same grounds as race or sex. The plaintiff Kate Lynn Blatt found some receptive ears in the 7th Circuit, which went so far in its ruling to brazenly admit that it was taking the legislative task of rewriting federal discrimination law, rather than simply applying it, because Congress “may not have realized or understood the full scope of the words it chose” when it passed the law in the first place.

While this case invokes the Americans with Disabilities Act and demands protection under that statutory framework, it has the same end game of other cases that invoke federal civil rights law to claim that being transgender is no different than race or sex.

The American Psychiatric Association claims – at least according to the Reuters report – that gender dysphoria and simply being transgendered are two different things. The assertion, contrasted with the group’s own definition of the disorder, smacks of capriciousness and political correctness.

So the question then becomes whether or not imagining oneself to be a different sex than that of their biological makeup is something innate, or whether it is a mental disorder on the same tier as substance addiction or depression.

It is not something to be indulged. Nobody holds pride parades to celebrate the excesses of alcoholism, and nobody wants to inculcate grade-school children with the idea that the side-effects of schizophrenia are something to be revered and respected.

Nobody tells people with anorexia that they really are the fat person they see in the mirror, that starving themselves to make their body match their delusions is a compassionate response, and that anyone who doesn’t agree is bigoted. Rather, these are things that we view as destructive to the wellbeing of the human person — something to be addressed with charity, mercy, understanding, and, overall, some kind of correctional treatment.

So now there are two competing narratives before our judicial system. Either someone like Blatt is a woman simply because they say they are, or there is indeed a disorder at work that puts the person at odds with reality.

While some highly skilled philosophical contortionist in our court system may indeed find a way to make these two assertions work in tandem, these two assertions cannot coexist in an intellectually honest discussion. Either transgenderism is reality, or it is a disorder; it cannot be both. (For more from the author of “Federal Lawsuit Contends Transgenderism Is a Mental Disorder” please click HERE)

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Jim Mattis Faces a Difficult Decision on the Military’s Transgender Policy

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The Pentagon is prepared to implement a new policy clearing the way for transgender men and women to join the armed forces, Military Times has learned, but final approval rests with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who could endorse, revise, delay or even abandon it.

Mattis faces a July 1 deadline, according to the parameters defined by his predecessor as defense secretary, Ash Carter. But the sensitive matter has become much more urgent for two transgender students now within days of graduating from the Army and Air Force military academies.

As USA Today first reported May 10, the unidentified cadets were recently informed that, absent a policy formalizing new accession standards, they won’t be commissioned as military officers with the rest of their graduating class. Those proposed guidelines were sent to the defense secretary’s office but Mattis has yet to act on them, according to multiple sources familiar with discussions surrounding the policy’s implementation.

Meanwhile, neither the Army nor the Air Force has granted waivers to the cadets so they may proceed to serve in the active-duty military, causing some to question whether Mattis might decide against the proposed policy. Already, the Trump administration has moved to scale back federal protections for transgender students attending public schools, sending a strong signal it opposes further expanding such rights.

The Air Force Academy holds its graduation May 24 in Colorado Springs. West Point’s ceremony, at which Mattis is slated to provide the commencement address, will be held May 27 in New York. (Read more from “Jim Mattis Faces a Difficult Decision on the Military’s Transgender Policy” HERE)

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Transgender Conundrum: Massive Genetic Differences Between Men and Women Uncovered in Recent Study

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Men and women differ in obvious and less obvious ways – for example, in the prevalence of certain diseases or reactions to drugs. How are these connected to one’s sex? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently uncovered thousands of human genes that are expressed – copied out to make proteins – differently in the two sexes. Their findings showed that harmful mutations in these particular genes tend to accumulate in the population in relatively high frequencies, and the study explains why. . .

[The scientists] looked closely at around 20,000 protein-coding genes, sorting them by sex and searching for differences in expression in each tissue. They eventually identified around 6,500 genes with activity that was biased toward one sex or the other in at least one tissue. For example, they found genes that were highly expressed in the skin of men relative to that in women’s skin, and they realized that these were related to the growth of body hair. Gene expression for muscle building was higher in men; that for fat storage was higher in women. . .

Less obvious locations included genes that were found to be expressed only in the left ventricle of the heart in women. One of these genes, which is also related to calcium uptake, showed very high expression levels in younger women that sharply decreased with age; the scientists think that they are active in women up to menopause, protecting their hearts, but leading to heart disease and osteoporosis in later years when the gene expression is shut down. Yet another gene that was mainly expressed in women was active in the brain, and though its exact function is unknown, the scientists think it may protect the neurons from Parkinson’s – a disease that has a higher prevalence and earlier onset in men. The researchers also identified gene expression in the liver in women that regulates drug metabolism, providing molecular evidence for the known difference in drug processing between women and men. (Read more from “Transgender Conundrum: Massive Genetic Differences Between Men and Women Uncovered in Recent Study” HERE)

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The Tip of the Transgender Spear

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One Virginia school district was ahead of the curve. Even before President Obama issued his “transgender bathroom” rule, Fairfax County was planning to allow students access to bathrooms and locker rooms that did not correspond to their sex. They rushed the vote on the policies without giving parents the chance to respond. Now parents are fighting back. Last week, the Family Research Council hosted a panel led by FRC senior legal fellow Cathy Ruse to help equip parents for the fight.

Parents Fight Back

On May 7, 2015, Fairfax County School District voted 10-1 to allow transgender students to access bathrooms and other facilities that did not correspond with their biological sex. At a meeting, parents were told that the policies were necessary to protect transgender students and required by law. Neither were true, said Ruse. Parents requested a public hearing about the policies, but the school board refused. Normally, it would take months to make policy changes. It took the school board all of two weeks to vote to install these policies.

Some parents want to know why.

Rushing to Embrace Transgenderism

It takes a systemic approach to implement changes, said Elizabeth Schultz. Schultz is a Fairfax County School Board Member and a parent. They are not quick procedures. “From origination to full implementation of the adoption of gender identity within Fairfax County happened in a matter of weeks,” Schultz said. In this case, there was no study or community engagement. People on both sides of the issue are dissatisfied. They’ve “never … seen a consultant report” or had a data-driven discussion on how to address transgender issues.

“I was stunned,” said Meg Kilgannon, Executive Director of Concerned Parents and Educators of Fairfax County and a parent. “How could something so very extreme have happened? And how was it done in two weeks?” It took ten years to put in place new school start times, she said. Kilgannon’s organization has taken steps to reverse the implemented policies. Kilgannon warned that if this could happen in Fairfax, it can happen anywhere. She suggested ways for other parents to fight changes in other school districts. Kilgannon encouraged both parents and concerned members of the community to get involved.

Transgender Students and the Law

Josh Hetzler is the Legislative Counsel for the Family Foundation of Virginia. He said that Virginia has been the epicenter of the transgender issue. Particularly Fairfax County, as it is the 10th-largest school district in the nation. Hetzler said there’s been a lot of confusion regarding the law. “Depending on who you talk to, you’re going to hear totally different things,” he explained. Part of the confusion has to do with Title IX and the Obama administration’s reinterpretation of the 1972 law regarding sex of students. “What they said was basically, ‘We are going to reinterpret the word sex to now include sexual orientation and gender identity,’” said Hetzler. “In 1972 they didn’t think they needed to define ‘sex.’”

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals questioned whether federal agencies, state or school boards would have the final say on the issue. The law has not yet been settled, he said.

Besides working with federal law’s Title IX, Virginia also has the Dillon Rule, which limits the power of Fairfax County. The county admits that “the Dillon Rule narrowly defines the power of local government. It also states that if there is any reasonable doubt whether a power has been conferred on a local government, then the power has not been conferred.” Fairfax County doesn’t have the power to revise nondiscrimination or harassment categories, Hetzler said. That’s especially true of those “that the General Assembly hasn’t included in the Virginia code.”

The transgender issue was “hanging by a thread,” but it “was beginning to infiltrate school boards over a lawless letter.” At just the right moment it seemed, Hetzler noted, a new administration came to town. The Trump administration revoked the letter. But people at the grassroots level are still needed to make a change.

The main takeaway, Hetzler said, is that elections matter. The rule of law is only as good as those who enforce and uphold it. “We’ve got to elect people who have the right values and who have the courage to uphold them when it’s difficult, because it’s a lot of pressure.” (For more from the author of “The Tip of the Transgender Spear in Virginia” please click HERE)

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