Men in women’s bathrooms, boys in girls’ sports, and worst of all, parents forbidden from blocking “sex-reassignment surgery” for their minor children.
These are among the radical implications of the Equality Act supported by almost all Senate Democrats. Controversy about this bill may just be the sleeper issue of the fall campaign, and a conservative group called the American Principles Project is trying to make Democrats pay for it.
Good for APP. Its warnings are justified.
APP is running ads in Michigan against incumbent Democratic Sen. Gary Peters and against presidential nominee Joe Biden because of their support for the Equality Act. The three ads pull no punches. Two of them feature a man named Kevin Whitt who transitioned to female as a teenager, only to decide 17 years later he was a man after all. He says that sex changes for minors are “child abuse.” A third commercial features girls running on a track but beaten by a person who is still obviously a boy and thus losing the championships, and maybe scholarships, they otherwise would have won.
Democrats say the Equality Act is intended to stop discrimination against gay and transgender people, but APP and others argue it would force radical consequences such as the ones described above. With good logic, they point to similar state laws that already have done so.
At least on the problem of biological males unfairly competing in women’s sports, some very prominent liberals and gay activists agree that the Equality Act goes too far. They write that without an exception to its language for Title IX, which mandates adequate funding for women’s sports, the Equality Act “would do significant damage to Title IX and to the Amateur Sports Act, which governs sports outside of educational settings.”
As they further explain, “Title IX not only permits but often requires educational institutions that receive federal money to provide separate programs and opportunities for females based on sex. This is necessary because sex segregation is the only way to achieve equality for girls and women in competitive athletics.”
Those warnings came in a guest column in the Washington Post by all-time tennis great Martina Navratilova, a lesbian and thoughtfully outspoken liberal activist, by four-time Olympic track gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ross, and by Duke law professor Doriane Coleman. They support the Equality Act overall, but they say it must be amended to support women’s sports.
At least in the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats were too radical even to consider such an amendment. When Republican Rep. Greg Steube of Florida asked permission to offer an amendment such as the one advocated by Navratilova and company, House Democrats killed his effort, with only one Democrat voting to protect Title IX.
Almost every Democrat in the Senate also supports the Equality Act as is, as does Biden. That’s why APP and other conservative groups will try to make all of them fully own the implications of sex changes for minors and of boys trampling girls in athletics. The issues are legitimate. The bill’s provisions would be hugely detrimental to reason, fairness, and decency. If Democratic candidates don’t disown the bill as written, they deserve to pay a political price.
