Wellesley promotes itself as a women’s college. The “My Wellesley” page proclaims its mission is to educate women. But that mission got turned on its head this week. Wellesley students voted to admit trans men.
Wellesley students vote to admit trans men
Their vote triggered a national debate. Even Congress will soon debate a bill that bars trans men from participating in women’s sports. Liberal Democrats oppose it. But conservative Republicans have enough votes to pass it.
I am more liberal than most Democrats. But I swing both ways on this issue. Because I couldn’t care less that some people identify as transgender. I care only when they demand we treat them like members of the cisgender they identify with. I have misgivings about that.
Interestingly, this issue almost always involves trans women demanding we treat them like cis women. Few people seem bothered by trans men in this respect. But that only betrays the natural unfairness in the former.
That’s why the controversy over Wellesley admitting trans men is so peculiar:
Students at Wellesley College voted Tuesday to allow transgender men and nonbinary people who were assigned male at birth to be eligible for admission, a move that could symbolically change the face of the Massachusetts women’s liberal arts college but was resisted by the college’s leaders.
(Washington Post, March 15, 2023)
Wellesley is all-women – even if they have balls?
Those college leaders have no problem admitting trans women. That is biological males who identify as women. But they are resisting trans men. That is biological women who identify as men.
But this makes no sense. The idiom, What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, comes to mind. After all, trans men are more women than trans women.
Of course, given the cognitive dissonance afoot, this was inevitable. But the simplest way to convey my misgivings is to pose the following:
- Morehouse is a men’s college. If it voted to admit trans men, would you feel the same way you do about Wellesley doing so? Better still, how would you feel if a men’s prison started incarcerating trans men?
As indicated, both scenarios fill me with the same misgivings. It would be different if trans men and trans women had “transitioned.” In that case, treating them like biological women and biological men would be fair, respectively. That is, based on established biological criteria.
Biology is determinative – especially in sports
Trans women are bound to win any competition against biological women. That’s based not only on general science but common sense too. If allowed, it would only be a matter of time before trans women dominate all women’s sports. Then, I fear, biological women would no longer even bother trying to compete against these men in drag.
For example, consider an 18-year-old biological man who suddenly identifies as a trans woman. Would it be fair for that trans woman to compete against 19-year-old cis women? I say no.
What’s more, imagine a women’s college admitting not a few but hundreds of trans women. That many dicks swinging around campus would make a mockery of that college’s mission. You need only look at the controversy trans woman swimmer Lia Thomas has caused. And they are swinging it at the University of Pennsylvania – a coed school.
Yet Wellesley will also allow “nonbinary people who were assigned male at birth to be eligible for admission.” I mean, couldn’t any 18-year-old cis man simply identify as nonbinary to end up like a fox among hens…?
The only fair resolution is for trans women to compete against trans women. And, of course, for trans men to compete against trans men. That is, just as biological women and biological men compete against each other, respectively.