Pablo Torre Finds Out - A Reasonable Solution to the Transgender Athlete Debate

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

The author of the definitive new book on gender in sports, Katie Barnes, explores how The Right ran up the score on progressives in a political messaging war — then offers a modest proposal, from pronouns to hormones and statehouses to schools, that most sane people can agree upon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Serena Williams would beat you in tennis. I think that's fair to say. How dare you? I know. I recognize it as a very controversial statement. As an alpha male, how dare you?

Right after this ad. You're listening to Drap Kings Network. I have never written a book. I should confess that at one point, I bought book writing software, downloaded it to my computer, because I wanted to do a book about Jeremy Lynn. I was about ready to say that I feel like you have a Linsanity book in you. Yeah, unfortunately, it's the most predictable thing

and also the most accurate thing, is that I have a lot more to say about Linsanity. Well, I might need you to do a Linsanity book. I remember begging, I mean, truly begging Jeremy, and being like, hey man, will you authorize this biography I want to do of you? This was literally March 2012. And I have never had a more awkward phone call with someone I still consider a friend. Because he effectively, and I didn't want to misquote him here, but I will quote the one word I remember, which is no.

And I was like, I deserve that. Oh, man. I deserve that. Yeah, I didn't really have the same level of difficulty. Somehow, you doing the treatise on transgender athletes was less stressful. Okay, so real quick, I just want to start by pointing out that I find our country's political messaging war around gender to be very stupid. Because nobody should want to control what another person's gender is this much, right? I mean, whether you're male, female, trans man, trans female, intersex, non-binary, whatever.

wherever you are, however you self-identify, however you express yourself, it's just as good at textbook definition of personal freedom as you will find in this country, which loves freedom, allegedly. And you may recall that last month in episode seven of Pablo Tori finds out, we put into perspective the vanishingly small number of trans female athletes who are invading women's sports, supposedly. You met Emberzelch, this incredibly charismatic but deeply mediocre, backup softball catcher, who happened to be the one and only trans girl playing varsity sports in the entire state

of Ohio. This was back when Ohio first tried its wave of anti-trans bills. Ember still has never hit a home run. That is my update for you. But watch that episode. I think it's useful. Today, though, I wanted to get to a more outwardly tricky question, an offshoot of that episode, because our treatment of Ember's story did not address this, and I think it's useful.

How are we supposed to deal with the fact that some trans women, like Leah Thomas, the pen swimmer, actually are elite athletes, actually are really good at sports, actually are winners? Is there a reasonable policy that could control who gets to play which sports? And so today I promise that we will build to one solution with Katie Barnes, the author of the excellent new book Fair Play, How Sports Shape the Gender Debates. But first, I really needed to understand how the left got here, how they wound up losing so badly, and why it's failing to persuade America in a very stupid political messaging war about our most basic freedoms. You are somebody who is, and I want to say this very clearly, you are a journalist and not an activist. That is correct. And you are not entirely predictable, which is part of why, beyond you being my friend in real life, and someone who got to read your book early on, this is just me humble bragging. I got to read Katie's book before it came out.

But it's something that struck me because holy shit, there is stuff in here that does not fall within the realm of orthodoxy, of what the less. left, capital T, capital L, would want you, dear reader, to think and feel about this subject. Yeah, I think that's fair. And I issue that in many respects, mostly because I'm a journalist and not an activist. The place I want to start is, though, with the messaging war around all of this. The people who are, yeah, conservative on this issue and are trying to pass back. bills that ban trans athletes. They are so much better at playing the political game than the other side of the aisle is. And your book deals with this. What is your sense of how big that

disparity is when it comes to the strategy around how to enact laws around this topic? I think for a lot of folks, the issue of transgender athletes emerged recently. seems like it came out of nowhere and all of a sudden it was this huge big deal. Whether that was through Leah Thomas, swimming at the University of Pennsylvania and winning a national championship in 2022, or the ongoing discussion about legislation that has passed across the country now in 23 states. It seems like, oh, this is a thing that came out of nowhere for me. What's happening? But before then, there was this dust up over a piece of paper.

as a dear colleague letter from the Obama administration in 2016, where they just said, for schools, here's guidance on how you're going to support transgender athletes and students. And that was published in May of 2016. It was signed by representatives from both the Department of Justice and the Department of Education. It never went into effect because 23 states sued. We welcome you both here to Newsmax Prime.

We heard from Texas Lieutenant Guy. Governor Dan Patrick a bit earlier, but it's worth a second listen to some of his other comments this morning on the prospect of the Obama administration insisting that bathrooms be made and locker rooms be made available to transgender. Let's look and listen. The battle line has been drawn in a way that the president does not know the line he crossed this time. When you take on mom and dad in their homes or the president threatens their children, He has made a huge mistake. There was already this sort of tit-tat-tat back and forth

between the Obama administration and states. But then when the Trump administration took over, they rescinded that guidance almost immediately and, in fact, used Title IX to specifically force at least one school, Franklin Pierce University, to change their transgender athlete policy. In a late-night decision, the White House reverse guidelines issued under

President Obama. And it was really the first time that we've seen Title IX, like, really weaponized in that way. For the very, very basic sake of definitions here, like, what is Title IX? I got this. Title IX. Yeah. It's 37 words of legislation passed in 1972. That is an education access piece of policy and law that says every student is protected from sex-based discrimination in their schools, including in programs and activities. The activities bit is important because that is what created girls' sports. So you see litigation from arguing on both sides of Title IX

saying that Title IX is the reason why transgender girls should not be able to participate in girls' sports. And then you also have people who are in favor of inclusion arguing that Title IX is the reason why transgender girls should be able to compete in girls' sports. And just to be clear, this apparent contradiction is all possible because of one specific word in the writing of Title IX. Sex.

Title IX says that no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. What Title IX does not say there, you may notice, is the word gender, let alone transgender, which may be completely unsurprising, given that Title IX passed more than 50 years ago

before we broadly distinguished a person's gender, how they self-identify again, from their sex, meaning their physiology, but what the Trump administration did, in contradiction of the Obama White House, was very strategically argue that the word sex does not protect gender from discrimination at all.

So the question of what does sex-based discrimination mean and who is protected under the law and what did they mean in 1972 and what does the Equal Protection Clause of our Constitution mean? Like, there are all of these core questions that are about the validity of identity and how the law is going to be applied in our schools for all students. And so to go back to your original question about kind of how we got here and how the right was able to sort of outmaneuver, you know, the broader progressive movement and the equality movement more specifically when it comes to LGBTQ equality, a big part of it is that the issue emerged from the right and what makes it so challenging to talk about

and why it's made it challenging from a messaging perspective is that if somebody is using language like biological male to describe a transgender girl, that brings up an image that is not reflective of who many, like who transgender girls are. especially when we're talking about school sports. And what I mean by that is you can see in political ads, especially in Kentucky, these ads were running in the midterms in 2018

and then also in 2020, I believe, in particular. You see images of cisgender boys running alongside cisgender girls. All female athletes want is a fair shot in competition, at a scholarship, at a title, at victory, What if that shop was taken away by a competitor who claims their girl but was born a boy? Andy Bashir supports legislation that would destroy girls' sports. And that's not who Andrea Yearwood is. That's not who Leah Thomas is.

That's not who Juniper Eastwood is. It's not who Ember's Elches. And it complicates having this discussion because we're not all talking about the same thing. I am conjuring up scientific authority, objective reality, in contrast to your soft and mushy cisgender stuff, which is not as, you know, it's not as intuitive to the average independent voter, let's say. Right. And the reason I bring that up is because specifically, I'm just going to just skip forward a few years, is at the, we're just talking about Andrea yearwood. As this is happening, Andre was a freshman in 2017. She continues to run in 2018.

Is joined by Terry Miller, who's also a transgender girl in the state of Connecticut who is running. and the two of them win a lot of races and they win a lot of championships over the course of their high school careers. Two high school track stars who took first and second place at the Connecticut State Championships now finding themselves at the center of a controversy.

Both young women are transgender and competed on the girls' team. That's not sitting well with some parents and student athletes, though. They've started a petition to change a rule. It's something that's getting a lot of coverage, especially beginning in the spring of 2018 and the winter of 2019

when Andrea Yearwood and Terry Miller go one-two in the 100-meter race in the outdoor championships in 2018 and in the 55-meter race in the indoor championships in 2019 just garners a lot of attention primarily in more conservative media outlets. You see athletes that they beat start appearing on Fox News with more frequency. Connecticut is one of many states that, in the name of inclusiveness, allow biological males to compete in women's sports leagues. But is it detrimental to female athletes?

You probably know what I think about this, having been a female athlete, especially in high school. Now, that's what three high school track and field stars argue in a new lawsuit to overturn the state athletic conference's transgender policy. According to their complaint, this reality is discrimination against girls that directly violates the requirements of Title IX. Because schools are permitting males to compete as girls and women, girls and women are losing competitive opportunities. To American girls, those born with XX chromosomes, the message is, give up.

You can't win. Joining me now exclusively, I'm so happy to see the mall. It's like a Connecticut reunion here. The high school track and field stars behind this lawsuit. And it becomes a topic that folks who share those political perspectives begin to really focus on. Barbara Ehart is one of them, who's a state representative in Idaho. And so she wants to write a bill. And she reaches out to organizations that she just,

describes as pro-family groups, direct quote, to help her write that legislation. They don't have sample legislation on this topic. This isn't something that there's a lot of legislative energy around at this time. And you could also see that because there aren't bills really on this topic in this way at that time. Eventually, the Alliance Defending Freedom reaches back out to Barbara Ehart and says, oh, hey, we have some thoughts on this bill. What do you think? She says, I like what you have here. I'm going to use it. And she introduces HB 500 in the state of Idaho. Literally the day after the Alliance Defending Freedom

announces their lawsuit that they filed in Connecticut on behalf of at that time three named cisgender girl plaintiffs suing the state's high school association based on their trans-inclusive policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, friends. I bring you forward this House Bill 500 whose intent is simple. its intent is to continue to protect girls and women in sports and to provide those opportunities that we have had for almost the last 50 years. Every girl deserves a chance to pursue her dreams and excel in athletic opportunities

and to force biological girls and women to compete against biological boys and men will only leave us spectators in our own sport. So I just got to point out here again, Alliance Defending Freedom. What a name. It's quite a name. And so what is their background as an organization? Their conservative legal conglomerate, a conservative perspective on a number of issues.

And I just want to pop in here to say that there is nothing wrong with that basic idea, right? Welcome to American politics. But I also do need to point out that the Alliance Defending Freedom is also one of the most hyper-organized and strategic legal interest groups in the United States. Since 2016, actually, the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified Alliance Defending Freedom as a hate group because it, quote, has supported the idea that being LGBTQ plus should be a crime in the U.S. and abroad and believe that it is okay to put LGBTQ plus people in prison for engaging in consensual sex. End quote. Again, welcome to American politics. which I also say, because former vice president Mike Pence is an ally of the alliance,

as is Senator Josh Hawley and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, allegedly. In fact, in its 30 years of existence, Alliance Defending Freedom has argued more than a dozen cases in front of the Supreme Court, as one of their many, many ads points out. This is why Alliance Defending Freedom exists. The Arizona Supreme Court ruling in favor of a pair of Christian,

artist. A Finland court dismissed all charges of hate speech. The Supreme Court sides with a former student of Georgia Gwynette College. Nevada Church is scoring a major victory in court. Louisville wedding photographer has won her federal lawsuit. We must protect Title IX and women's sports for the next generation. And it is that last part, by the way. There's strategic messaging around saving Title IX from biological males that reshaped our national conversation and our national legislation around

trans people in sports, starting with the aforementioned HB 500, House Bill 500 in Idaho. There's a very clear, when you look at the bills that have been filed, there's a very clear before HB 500 and after HB 500. HB 500 was not the first bill filed in state legislatures that looked to restrict eligibility for transgender athletes or look to affect eligibility for transgender athletes or affect the ability for high school associations to their own policy on that topic. But this one was different. ADF has said publicly that this is their model legislation.

You can see if you look at, you know, Alabama's version, Tennessee's, Mississippi, West Virginia, they are structured similarly. They look the same. The language is very similar. Folks who are in more conservative political spaces were beginning to be more interested in transgender athletes, specifically transgender girls. And so you can see the emergence of this issue over the course of really 2017 until HB500 is filed within folks who have more conservative political perspectives and various touchpoints

and how that was not reflected in terms of coverage from more left-leaning outlets or interest from Democrats in terms of matching the Republicans' emotional investment in this topic. Well, that's it. But that part, right, the emotional investment, what they realize their core insight now to just say this even more straightforward was there is emotional resonance. There is political power in the idea of now we have the story of victimization. We have the story of our girls, our daughters, the biological girls, as they have framed it, right, deliberately, losing out to, these con artists who are cheating them out of what is rightfully theirs, their experience, their scholarships, their lives.

And that, their insight, which was a winning one, is people are going to want to hear us out on that. And we can win over that undecided. Well, I think in general, sports is emotional. And we view sports through our own experiences, whether that is from being a spectator or being, you know, somebody who had a very, you know, typical varsity point guard career. I love how this topic inevitably goes to you humble bragging about your high school basketball

career. My incredibly mediocre high school basketball career. But, you know, a lot of people had mediocre high school football careers, basketball careers, like nobody by nobody, I mean, very few, very small percentage of us go on to have meaningful collegiate professional Olympic careers. That describes such a small amount of the athletic experience, and yet we love sports. We have careers, you and I, because of how much you and I love sports, how much people love sports and care about sports. And so when the topic is framed as a number of these pieces of legislation do, which they're literally titled Save Women's Sports, right?

It implies that women's sports are under threat, that there is the possibility of them going away and that there is something inherently wrong with transgender athletes participating in, you know, girls and women's sports in particular. Although it is worth noting that, you know, some of the states have also restricted the ability for transgender boys to participate in boy sports. And so it's not always just about transgender girls. And also, you know, as somebody who is non-binary, I'm just like, we're not even talking about non-binary athletes. That's right. Get out of here. No, we've got time for you.

There's just so much happening, but we're so fixated culturally on one particular part of this experience. And by the way, this speaks to like the vocabulary war, right? I think about this all of the time. There's a funny thing happening where people get mad at a request for they, them pronouns, right? That is like such a winning, again, a broadly winning political argument. This pronoun bull-h-h-h-get that out of here. But it's like at the same time, I thought you guys wanted, like, us to not be the same as your girls.

Like we're literally saying, can you call us a different pronoun? And you're like, no, get the fuck out of here. It's like, but wait a minute. Why didn't, what happened to the? But also culturally, it's about for me as a writer, and I do talk about this, it's about respect, right? Do we respect people, even if we don't fully understand them? Are we willing to engage in a meaningful dialogue to better understand each other

and where we're coming from and the experiences that we all have or are we not? So when language is used that is undermining the validity of identity of trans people, such as the use of biological male, it's done purposefully. If I said, well, I, Katie Barnes, don't believe that the gender binary is particularly useful, and so therefore, everyone that I come in contact with will be they them, because that's what I think is right. That's me imposing a particular worldview onto everyone else. that I come into contact with.

And oftentimes we're talking about, you know, whether or not gender identity is real, whether or not transgender people are real, like, that is where a lot of the energy is focused on. And when we're reducing trans people to, you know, these really tough legislative experiences or questions about, you know, biological advantage or just biology generally and, like, what's going on in your birth certificate? and what's going on underneath your clothes. Like, that's a really dehumanizing conversation and strips trans people of respect and dignity

that we afford to most cisgender people. And I think it's important to say that as a part of this conversation. But I think it is something that is often lost in a discussion about how we got here and what appropriate policy should be. Because, you know, for me as a journalist and honestly, what I hope most everyone takes away from fair play

is that transgender people are people who have experiences and hopes and dreams. And yes, some of them play sports. And that's a part of those hopes and dreams and experiences as well. I want to ask, before we get to the specific policy, which you just provided a great segue towards, what should the other side of the aisle have done in anticipation or in just reaction to how this war has been more? waged politically. From my reporting, it's hard for me to say what should have been done.

What my reporting does show is what did not happen, which was there was not necessarily a response. 2019 was a pretty clear year in terms of the Alliance of spending freedom filing that Title IX complaint. And there wasn't a great response. And folks who are in that movement except that. It did not happen in 2020. It did not happen in 2021, even as there was an explosion of legislation. on this issue. And that's something, again, that I think folks, you know, again, they want to talk about Leah Thomas. There were nine states that had already passed into law some version of what we saw with HB 500 by the time Leah Thomas dove into a pool for her senior year of swimming. And then, of course, that doubled the following year to 18. And now we're up to 23. And there are, you know,

two states, Ohio and Wisconsin that could bring that to 25. And then also, You know, we talk about sports being very emotional. One of the things that, you know, was talked about to me from a number of folks is that within, like, queer and trans movements for equality, you know, sports is not exactly our forte in terms of, you know, the community's expertise. It's not to say there isn't a long history of queer and trans athletes. No, no, no, but I get it. But it's a sight of pain for a lot of people. And one of the sources, you know, in the book, who is a lesbian, you know, recalled going to her board and saying,

we want to do some more sports work. And the board was primarily gay men. They're like, well, of course, you do. You're a lesbian and we hate a gym class. And so there wasn't this recognition of what was about to happen. And then as it was happening, you know, the sports legislation then was also beginning to be paired with legislation that affected access to health care for transgender youth. And while we've had all this discussion about how.

so few transgender youth are playing sports, well, all transgender youth need access to health care in some way, shape, or form. Marshaling a response to then what has become a true legislative crisis for trans people specifically was tremendously difficult, especially when you don't have the funders who fund this work lining up and writing blank checks.

That was not happening. And that's where I have sympathy for the movement, in all of its failings as it watched this lead on the scoreboard politically get run up by the right because the question of like well what do we do here what is our policy proposal for who gets to play sports at what levels and so forth and so on that's why i now bring you the topic that you're exhausted by but is the one that i have to imagine everybody is like actually demanding like we need an answer here Yes, the one question I get asked probably the most is, is it fair and what is fair?

Yes. And so, is it fair and what is fair? First off, the science of advantage. We should not be numb to the idea of competitive advantage following human physiology, following biology. And so practically, this means hormones, this means testosterone. own. So how do you explain this stuff for people who, who again don't have the sophistication or the nuance or maybe the inclination? The first thing is sketching out what we know, right? We know that

there are physiological and metabolic benefits conferred upon those who go through testosterone-driven puberty because there is a general performance gap, especially in power, speed, and strength-based sports between elite men and elite women. Yes. Meaning that the fastest woman in the world is not nearly as fast as the fastest man in the world. And also that the fastest woman in the world can be beaten by relatively less faster men. Mm-hmm.

We know this. Times don't lie, right? However, we also know that not all the... all trans people will go through testosterone-driven puberty, right? Meaning specifically transgender girls. There are those who have access to gender-affirming care and choose to begin their transition before puberty and through access to puberty blockers and then cross-wormone therapy do not go through testosterone-driven puberty.

Prior to testosterone-driven puberty, there are not significant differences between boys and girls and also just anyone of any gender who was participating in sports, right, even though we sex separate very young. So that's another thing that we do, is we sex separate very young. And when we talk about testosterone-driven puberty, we often culturally boil that down to boys being better athletes, boys being better at sports. That's the cultural messaging. So what ends up happening is that culturally, we talk about our sports, and from the

perspective of any person who's assigned male at birth as a better athlete than any person assigned female at birth in all circumstances at all times. From the beginning of their life on this planet. Correct. And we also know that that's not true, right? Like Serena Williams would beat you in tennis. I think that's fair to say. How dare you?

I know. I'm just, I recognize it as a very controversial statement. As an alpha male, how dare you? Right. But like, you know, Maya Moore would also beat you in basketball. It's true. And that's fine. It's okay.

She would also beat me. So... This is tough to come to terms with. I'm sure. But I think one of the things that gets lost in that discussion is that sports are also fundamentally skills. So this is an important part. It's a very important part. Skill, intangible, not just sheer physical talent does happen to matter.

Right. And especially when we're talking about younger athletes, right? Like, I don't know. I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Indiana. And when you played against somebody who was going D1, you knew. Like, you knew. There's that raw athletic talent. There's also the development of a skill, right?

And we allow for the investment in that skill development. Right. So what I mean by that is it's perfectly fine. for, you know, so-and-so to have a quarterback coach beginning at age nine if your family can afford it. And that is also a type of advantage. Yes. Right. But we accept that advantage as fair.

So each athlete is unique in that they bring their own set of physiological advantages and disadvantages and also the external advantages and disadvantages in terms of when did you start playing. How much money has your family been? able to invest. What kind of school do you go to? To go to a school that has money and resources, do you go to a school that has the kind of sport that you want to participate in? It does remind me that it would be a very funny policy proposal to ban, like, all of the NBA players whose parents are NBA players. Right. And so some of that is genetic, right, in terms of if your parents played competitive professional basketball, whether we're talking about, you know,

maybe they played overseas, maybe your dad actually did play in the NBA, maybe your mom played in the WMBA. Yep. Right? So the standard reason that you're probably taller than average, which is an important indicator of whether or not you will be successful in the NBA, right? And also, you have access to different resources to develop that natural athletic talent. No doubt.

So that's all that bucket. For the record, there is not a movement to ban the children of professional athletes from professional sports. No, there's not. So then the question becomes, okay, well, if you are someone who experience testosterone-driven puberty and you are a transgender girl or a woman and you want to participate in girls and women's sports and we know that there are physiological and metabolic advantages conferred upon those who go through testosterone-driven puberty, how successful is testosterone suppression? Yes.

And that is an open question that's being studied. Right. And so what we know is that testosterone suppression does affect muscle. mass. It does not reduce muscle mass down to a typical cisgender female level. We know that there are some metabolic indicators that are affected, but again, not down to what we would expect to see in a typical cisgender woman. But what we also know is they are not the same physiologically as what we would expect to see in cisgender men. It's not a magic command Z undo button. No, it doesn't undo it in terms of testosterone.

driven puberty. You know, if you are somebody who was tall, it doesn't necessarily shrink you down to the height you might have been had you not gone through testosterone-driven puberty. But I thought it was interesting. In one of my interviews with Leah Thomas, she said she did shrink an inch and that her feet shrink. But so this speaks to the part of the function of a population that is tiny and is constantly under legal attack, is that there just aren't a lot of studies, it feels like. No, there's not a lot of data specifically around transgender athletes. So a lot of what we are extrapolating in terms of the differences of sexes in athletic performance is from studies of elite cisgender men and cisgender women. And then we do have some studies that look at the effects of testosterone

suppression on certain athletic outputs. So for example, there's a study that looks at members of the military in various stages of transition, both transgender women and transgender men and how various cross-hormone therapy and in the case of transgender women testosterone suppression affects their push-ups, sit-ups, and mild time, and for transgender women. There are push-ups, you know, they come down to a level that's reflected in cisgender women. Same thing with the sit-ups. The mile time does not, but the study was kind of cut short. And so with longer time on suppression that may have happened, it also may not have happened.

There's a study out of Brazil that looks at testosterone suppression with some folks having suppressor testosterone testosterone up to like 14 years, which is actually one of the longest times that we have from a data set perspective on VO2 max, grip strength, and a couple of other physiological indicators. And it's mixed, right? Like in terms of how testosterone suppression affects your VO2 max and your grip strength and what remains, what does not remain. Like, we don't have longitudinal data on transgender athletes and, you know, starting testosterone suppression at various levels of puberty

and how that affects athletic performance. But, but look, so I want to essentially try and do a brief summary then of the nuance you just laid out, which is to say that there are many drivers of athletic performance, right? And that goes to skill and size and speed and all that stuff, money, all that is in this multivariate equation. Let's say that testosterone, that puberty in that way, is not the entire story, but it is a relevant influence upon one's athletic performance. What do we do with that? it is my perspective that when it comes to placing restriction on the eligibility for transgender girls and women in the women's category,

when we should begin to care about that is when there are real stakes involved. And what I mean by that is scholarships and money. So Division 1, Division 2, college. there can be restrictions, and it's worth noting that there have been restrictions. Yes. Like there was a very clear policy that the Instability was using, beginning in 2011, that required transgender women to suppress her testosterone for one year before being eligible to compete in the women's category. It is worth noting that for the most famous example of a transgender woman competing on a Division I level,

successfully, Leah Thomas, she suppressed her testosterone for over two years. Right. And so it's also worth noting that a transgender woman being able to compete in the women's category and be allowed to win for some people that is seen as a failure of policy, that the policy should be designed to make sure it doesn't happen. And so for me, as I write in fair play, when it comes to Division I, Division I, Division II, some restriction, okay. Yes.

Professional, some restriction. Okay. Same thing with the Olympic level. Those are places where we already have an elevated level of scrutiny for those athletes, whether or not you may believe that that is appropriate. It does exist in terms of testing for doping, in terms of various eligibility. There's also such a high bar to clear because, again, sports are skills. You have to be good enough to be able to compete.

And so there are already barriers to entry. in that way. Barriers, by the way, that have existed for over a decade in the NCAA's cases you referred to, that I think it would almost be surprising to learn that if all you learned about this topic came through the political news cycle. Yeah, I think it definitely comes, like, people think that there are just no policies. Correct. That if you include that there is no way of creating a policy at all, it's either, it is, again, quite binary. It's yes or no. And in fact, there have been real world politically successful policies when it comes to how to regulate, yeah, the elite levels of sports.

And, you know, the Olympics also has a policy. Yes, the point being, if you're going to draw a line somewhere in terms of where do we regulate testosterone, where do we make people jump through hoops from a policy perspective to be included to get access to sports, you're saying D1, D2, elite sports, Olympics, that's the cutoff. Yeah, for me it is. So what that means that in practice is, K through 12, you should be able to participate in

school sports wherever feels good for you. Club level sports at that age as well, right? Because you can play travel soccer outside of your school system. Similarly, in terms of being able to participate and compete in a way. that works best for you. When we're looking at club sports at the college level, which is essentially pay to play, same thing. Intramural level sports, you should be able to play wherever it is that you want to play. Adult recreational community sports, play where you want. And, you know, so we should be allowed to participate in sports in a way that is communal and fun. And at those levels,

Even though, yes, I understand that high school, it does get a little bit messier. For me, like, when I say messy, I mean in terms of, you know, I don't want to cheapen anybody's experience in terms of saying your championship doesn't matter. Of course it matters. Like, I played for a sexual championship. I still think about it. I'm still bitter about the loss. Like, it was a defiant. There's the humble brag.

I was waiting for it. It was a defining moment in my high school career. Yes, and you mean that it's in the book. I mean, all. I mean it seriously. Yes, this is real to you. Yes. Yes, as it is to so many people who played for a state championship on their football team

or who loved running track with their friends or who won track championships or who swam in a final of what the – maybe they got on the podium. Like, I understand that for so many athletes, no matter when that experience started or finished, the competitive part of you, like, really love that experience, probably, hopefully. I hope it was a good one. and that was important. And so not cheapening that at all. And also, high school athletes are minors. And for me, morally and philosophically, I cannot get to a place where we are requiring medical intervention for children to compete in school sports. I think perhaps where policy is actually

messiest is in those club sports that are feeders. And I'm not saying that. that I personally am in favor of restriction for those club feeder programs. But I understand that that can be a different kind of conversation. Yeah. And we should allow for that too. Well, if the standard you're setting, I mean, this is what we're calling for, right? And this is very difficult, right, to set a policy that is consistent across all of these divisions and groupings. But what you're saying is if the standard is stakes and money, what do you do with the pre-professionals?

with those club feeder kids, with the ones who are prospects. I mean, I think of Frize Harper. You know, at age 16, one of the great baseball prospects you've ever seen. And again,

this speaks to the scouting of elite athletes happening ever sooner. And this can feel, I understand, dystopian. But it's also, it's also something that does entail

those stakes that you're describing. Yeah, but I also think that, you know, how our youth sporting apparatus has become so focused on money and scouting of talent. Like, to me, that is a separate issue, right? Like, that's not a transgender athlete issue. That is a question of who are our sports for? What is the experience of sports?

Like, what should that experience for youth be? Should we opt into dystopia? Right. Like, you know, there's a lot of discussions. There's really great writing and wonderful studies, you know, done around the professionalization of childhood. Yes. Like, and that is a whole separate thing. You know, transgender athletes and their desire to play with their friends, which at school level is what we're talking about. For pretty much everybody, except for that minority we're currently wringing our hands about. Right. Like, that is the focus, right? And, you know, should they be denied? that because of a construction around Joanna Man that is our own making and also the apparatus

around youth sports that is ever focused on capitalism that again is of our own making. That sells the dream that everyone's kid is a future pro. Right. And I think for me, right, when I look at the landscape and I say, here are where I see those stakes, it disrupts that a little bit. It's, asking us to be honest. It's pretty fucking radical. It's saying like not every kid is going to be an Olympian. Truly what you're saying is our conception of youth sports is the function of a delusion.

Everybody might be LeBron James. I think for me it is more about having a more complete conversation and asking us to have more nuance, which is really hard. But the reality is that this topic requires us to have nuance. It requires us to be thoughtful in how we are drawing these lines, right? Because when we draw these lines, when we place these boundaries, whatever they are, then we have to police the boundary. And so what does that look like? Because when it comes to policing who is eligible for girl sports. And it's worth noting that every single piece of this legislation that has passed into law has a mechanism for challenging a student's gender. And so if you're challenging, if you're able to

file a grievance and challenge another student's gender, like that opens us up to a lot of questions. At what point do you challenge? What spurs a challenge? What is the suspicion, right? Do you have a suspicion anytime your child loses, is a suspicion a girl with short hair, a girl with big muscles, a girl who's tall? And who does that affect? Because that's going to affect cisgender girls. It's going to affect anyone who subverts gender. For me, I just raised the question of, are we okay with that? Is that a place where we want to be when we're talking about young people playing sports? And I understand that a lot of people would rather focus on the Olympians playing sports. You want to have a conversation about, you know, should we have a transgender woman competing in Olympic weightlifting?

I want to focus on an athlete like Leah Thomas. We want to have those conversations. But the legislation that is now law in almost half of the states of our country makes no such distinction. And in fact, does the opposite by being as broad as humanly possible. So then we have to talk about kids and the science around youth. and all I'm saying is let's just have a more complete conversation and let's all be more informed. So when we're having this discussion,

we can actually have it about the same things. If we're talking about, I don't know, the concerns of a democracy, maybe we should actually figure out who the people are that are being affected by the policies we pass. And in this case, the overwhelming majority of the people affected are kids who just want to play sports and hang out with their friends? Well, and I think the reason that the overwhelming majority of people

who are affected by this legislation are kids who want to play sports with their friends is because that is the overwhelming experience of all of us who play sports. Yes. Right? Is that 96% of us don't play college sports. And of that 4% in even smaller percentage are playing Division 1, and of that percentage and even smaller percentage are going on to play professional sports or to be Olympians.

We need to hear each other and have the courage, I think, to confront some of these questions and to be willing to have a complete conversation, be willing to grapple with nuance. And like, I'm an eternal optimist. That's why I wrote this book in the hopes that folks would be willing to do that. And it's been my experience that most people are

if, you know, we can cut through all of the rhetoric can actually give people information, which is ultimately what I strive to do. You're never going to get over this high school basketball thing, are you? Oh, no, never. We didn't even get to the buzzer-beater conversation. I just love bringing up.

Katie Barnes, retired point guard. Thank you for your journalism. Oh, thanks for having me, Pablo. Appreciate it. Today, what I found out is why the whole conversation around trans athletes is so deliberate. broken. Because one group in particular did a really good job of breaking it. There was a mixture

of strategic and well-funded and honestly just impressively coordinated, messaging and legislation in order to wage a religiously motivated war against not just transgender people, but the idea of gender entirely. But the other reason why all of this is so f***ed up is because the correct policy around how to regulate hormones, testosterone, and therefore transgender participation across all sports at all levels is so deeply nuanced. You listen to Katie Barnes provide one solution, and I don't know yet if I co-sign that solution entirely, but I believe that Katie's policy is certainly a reasonable and undeniably thoughtful one. And if we can just agree on that, That basic understanding to me is serious progress.

This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metal Arc Media production, and I'll talk to you next time.