President Trump and Republicans are pressuring blue states – and even a few red ones – to end the injustice of allowing male athletes who claim transgender status to steal athletic opportunities from women. And they now enjoy broad public support because Americans are finally seeing through the pseudo-argument deployed by gender ideologues for several decades: “How does this affect you personally?”
The contours of this favorite leftist deflection are no doubt familiar to readers. Whether it be abortion liberalization, redefinition of marriage, open borders, or any other left/liberal innovation, we are told that we must give an account of how such a change will impact our lives in some direct and immediate sense. Otherwise, it’s none of our business.
It’s been a successful rhetorical strategy for decades now. In part, that is because it is often hard to predict how one’s life will be directly affected by big policy changes, and in part because Americans are an easygoing people who generally do want to live and let live as much as possible.
But as the left has pushed harder and harder for more destructive policies, Americans have rightfully begun to push back on the demand that we must explain how a policy impacts us personally in order to have an opinion. Americans intuitively understand that even if a policy does not immediately and directly affect them right now, it will most likely do so down the line – and it is probably affecting someone else right now.
On no issue is this more true than men in women’s sports. A 2025 Pew Research poll showed that 66 percent of Americans believe that athletes should be required to compete against their own sex; only 15 percent oppose this, while 19 percent say they are uncertain. Recent polling showing Hispanic voters swinging to the right cites this issue as a catalyst.
Despite these numbers and despite President Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, several states are actively resisting, Minnesota and California among them.
In Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison sued the Trump administration in order to keep men in women’s sports. This month, three female softball players sued Ellison – and a look at the state’s recent high school championship in that sport explains why.
On May 29, Champlin Park High cruised to the women’s softball state title with a dominant victory. They were led by “Marissa” Rothenberger, a six-foot-tall male who claims to have been “transitioning” since age nine. Rothenberger pitched two straight shutouts, including one over the defending state champions. Rothenberger has won 14 straight games this year.
Anyone with any grasp on reality understands that a male in decent shape who towers over the females against whom he competes will dominate them because of advantages in strength. It is fundamentally unfair. Video of Rothenberger mowing down opposing batters with ease confirms this.
Meanwhile, in California, AB Hernandez, another male claiming to be female, qualified on May 24 at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section Masters meet for the long, high, and triple jump in the state’s track championship, which was held this weekend. California law allows students to compete according to “gender identity” rather than biological sex.
President Trump threatened to withhold federal funding for the state because of this situation. In response, Governor Gavin Newsom, who seems to be trying to pivot to a 2028 presidential run, and the CIF changed the rules, ensuring that any girl pushed out of qualifying for the state meet by a boy would be allowed to compete anyway.
The way the rule was interpreted for the championships was that any events Hernandez (or another male) medaled in would award a medal to the females pushed out. This weekend at the state finals, Hernandez won both the triple jump and the high jump, with co-winners declared in each event. He also placed second in the long jump.
California’s shift is a clever ploy designed to neutralize the claim that transgender athletes are denying girls the opportunity to compete and win at high levels. And it was accompanied by an allusion to the “affect you personally” argument, as the governor’s office reminded reporters that the number of such males competing in female sports is very low.
But how long will this “solution” last? From the left, trans activists insist that males identifying as females are in every way really, fully female. They won’t accept this for long. And from the side of reality, it’s simply unfair that females have to share the glory with a male who has entered their competition.
As one observer noted, Hernandez’s long jump, qualifying him for the girls’ state finals, though nearly a foot longer than the second-place female, was two feet shorter than the last-place male in the same section meet. President Trump was thus absolutely correct about Hernandez in his warning to California about their failure to obey the executive order: “As a Male, he was a less-than-average competitor.”
Again, these are only the two highest-profile recent stories about males invading and destroying women’s sports. Others this spring include athletes in Illinois, Maine, and Washington. A report last year from (of all places) the United Nations showed that 600 elite female athletes had already lost 890 medals to males competing in the women’s category. The UN report also touched on a subject this column has not even mentioned yet: the injuries sustained by girls playing sports against males.
When there is a fundamental injustice, nobody, least of all Americans, needs to show how bad policies – particularly policies which run afoul of basic biology and the common sense accumulated over all of human history – affects him or her personally.
If you ask, however, about males competing against females, I will tell you, “Yes, I am affected personally.” I have two daughters who both play softball. We moved from Minnesota to Texas three years ago. I am glad that Texas protects my daughters from this very personal attack on their safety and their ability to compete.
But, even if I didn’t have daughters, I would still want girls in my former state and all over this nation to have the very same protections. Liberals used to know this. They often quoted Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
They should take that mantra to heart.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
I think it’s horrifying that the 2025 Pew Research poll showed that only 66 percent of Americans believe that athletes should be required to compete only against their own gender — and 19 percent aren’t sure whether men should compete against women.
What’s wrong with people!
where are the feminists?
There are only 2 sexes. If you were born male you will always be male, if you were born female you will always be female. No mater what surgeries are done you cannot change your sex. You might change your appearance but you cannot change you DNA.
Its called women’s sport and only people born female should compete in women’s sports. For people born male to compete in women’s sports is wrong and cheating.
Are these same people, who favor this unfair insult to women and girls, OK with a high school student playing against middle school students? It’s the same thing. He wasn’t good enough to be on the high school team, so he went down to a younger, easier to win with team. That’s what these fake women are doing. It’s completely ludicrous and should NEVER be happening anywhere in the world!
I’m a firm supporter for protecting Women’s Sports. This is a no-brainer. I too maintain if you believe you are anything other than what you were Biologically Born as: Male or Female you suffer an acute Mental Illness and hereby must be treated for this Delusional Disorder. This gives further credence as to why you must protect Women Sports from an unbalanced, emotionally, mentally, disturbed man.
These male degenerates wanting to play in girls and women’s sports CANNOT win against other boys and or men. So these deranged, moral-less participants HAVE TO CHEAT to win something that does NOT BELONG TO THEM.
And the equally degenerate and moral-less pervs who support them are just as guilty of this FRAUD, and ABUSE against any and all biological girls and women who play and compete against these weirdos.
I was an adult before Title IX became law, but I applauded it as a boost for girls/women.
If you have male genitalia, stay away from women’s sports and locker rooms!
I feel that these male who pose as women has major issue! Parents play major point in their lives! There many points that cause this! This male must realize there only two sex, male and females!
I don’t see how this could even be a issue. But it’s not difficult to see how this happened. Girls generally don’t participate in male sports because, of mostly, physical reasons although there have been a few. But the few who did, did so as girls – baseball, softball, soccer, football, volleyball, etc. – mostly team sports. Individual sports like track and field, are different. Although one could argue they are part of a team effort their accomplishment are individual events. And that is the argument, physical boys are competing with physical girls – one on one – not as part of a team. That’s not fair and we’ve seen the results. It’s hard enough to get girls to compete in sports without this issue – they’re not competing with other girls, they’re competing against a physical male. And as I said, that’s not fair. And it’s even less fair because this girl, who is a physical male, doesn’t have the ability to win the trophy or medal against other males. Which brings up the question, why don’t these girls, who are physically males, compete one on one with males?
I will be going to heaven very soon. You can figure this out on your own.
the democrats should ask Peyton MacNab how the issues directly affects her. What do they think she’ll say?