If only Joe Biden were an elected official, he may have been able to do something about transgender athletes..Biden opposes male transgender-identifying athletes competing in women's sports, according to a recent New York Times report about a transgender athlete who competed on the San Jose State University women's volleyball team last fall.The story says that the issue divided the Biden administration, with one side believing Title IX protections applied to so-called gender identity.Here's what it said about the other side:On the other side were administration officials who believed that the competitive, zero-sum nature of sports made them different from bathrooms — that some transgender athletes would enjoy unfair physical advantages over women. Most important, one of the officials holding this view was Biden himself. “The president was particularly focused on the competition issue,” says one former Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss the matter. Additionally, the story revealed that then-Vice President Kamala Harris had an answer prepared for the September 2024 presidential debate where she would've said the fairness and safety concerns regarding transgender athletes are legitimate. However, the ABC moderators didn't ask her about it.Here's what the report said:Following Biden’s exit from the presidential race last July, Kamala Harris seemed willing to address the trans-athlete issue. According to three people familiar with Harris’s campaign strategy, the campaign expected that the moderators would ask Harris about transgender children in sports during her September debate with Trump. The answer Harris’s advisers prepared for her, according to a person familiar with her campaign strategy, emphasized that trans children should be made to feel welcome in their schools but also acknowledged the concerns of parents whose kids, especially older ones, play competitive sports and want to make sure the competition is fair. But no one ever asked her, and the candidate didn’t bring it up on her own. These people were president and vice president for four years and not once did they publicly say what 79 percent of Americans think: that males don't belong in women's sports. (Only 18 percent say they do.)It's a safe position to take and it's great that Biden and Harris can acknowledge the problem behind closed doors. However, it's cowardly that they never used their platform as leaders of the free world to address the issue. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has made progress on this issue. He signed an executive order directing federal agencies to withhold funding from states and schools that let males compete in women's sports. It has resulted in a legal battle with Maine, but he has also gotten several states -- Nebraska, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada -- to change their policies, plus the National Collegiate Athletic Association. And Georgia Governor Brian Kemp will likely sign legislation preventing the practice in the next few weeks.Thus, the president isn't powerless on this issue. I'd argue that Biden had even more power on this issue because he was a de facto leader of the Democratic Party -- the party that insists on letting males compete in women's sports.That's especially true because Biden was a lame duck president for six months. That would've been a perfect time to give his fellow Democrats the middle finger by speaking his mind, rather than toeing the line of a party that wanted nothing to do with him. It's Democratic lawmakers and leaders of state interscholastic athletic organizations who are wildly out of touch with the American public on this issue, not the Republicans. When it comes to males competing in women's sports, it's an issue where the Democrats deserve most of the blame. It mostly happens in Democratic-leaning states -- hence, why transgender athletes won girls' track state titles in Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire last year (before New Hampshire banned the practice). And since Democrats in liberal states won't stop it from happening, male athletes will continue winning girls' awards and championships.And when a bill that would've prevented the practice came up for a vote in the U.S. Senate earlier this year, zero Democrats supported it. Zero! Instead of defending the practice, many of them said it was a local issue -- but it's these local liberal communities that let it happen. Maybe now that Biden's not president, he'll finally start speaking up about this injustice. Don't count on it, though -- he has been out of office for over three months and there still hasn't been a word from him.Biden's lack of leadership here is one of many reasons why he was a failed president. He should've used every opportunity he had to make life better for the American people. Hiding your thoughts and refusing to take action on a common-sense issue because it eschews Democratic Party orthodoxy isn't leadership..But it is Joe Biden.
If only Joe Biden were an elected official, he may have been able to do something about transgender athletes..Biden opposes male transgender-identifying athletes competing in women's sports, according to a recent New York Times report about a transgender athlete who competed on the San Jose State University women's volleyball team last fall.The story says that the issue divided the Biden administration, with one side believing Title IX protections applied to so-called gender identity.Here's what it said about the other side:On the other side were administration officials who believed that the competitive, zero-sum nature of sports made them different from bathrooms — that some transgender athletes would enjoy unfair physical advantages over women. Most important, one of the officials holding this view was Biden himself. “The president was particularly focused on the competition issue,” says one former Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss the matter. Additionally, the story revealed that then-Vice President Kamala Harris had an answer prepared for the September 2024 presidential debate where she would've said the fairness and safety concerns regarding transgender athletes are legitimate. However, the ABC moderators didn't ask her about it.Here's what the report said:Following Biden’s exit from the presidential race last July, Kamala Harris seemed willing to address the trans-athlete issue. According to three people familiar with Harris’s campaign strategy, the campaign expected that the moderators would ask Harris about transgender children in sports during her September debate with Trump. The answer Harris’s advisers prepared for her, according to a person familiar with her campaign strategy, emphasized that trans children should be made to feel welcome in their schools but also acknowledged the concerns of parents whose kids, especially older ones, play competitive sports and want to make sure the competition is fair. But no one ever asked her, and the candidate didn’t bring it up on her own. These people were president and vice president for four years and not once did they publicly say what 79 percent of Americans think: that males don't belong in women's sports. (Only 18 percent say they do.)It's a safe position to take and it's great that Biden and Harris can acknowledge the problem behind closed doors. However, it's cowardly that they never used their platform as leaders of the free world to address the issue. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has made progress on this issue. He signed an executive order directing federal agencies to withhold funding from states and schools that let males compete in women's sports. It has resulted in a legal battle with Maine, but he has also gotten several states -- Nebraska, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada -- to change their policies, plus the National Collegiate Athletic Association. And Georgia Governor Brian Kemp will likely sign legislation preventing the practice in the next few weeks.Thus, the president isn't powerless on this issue. I'd argue that Biden had even more power on this issue because he was a de facto leader of the Democratic Party -- the party that insists on letting males compete in women's sports.That's especially true because Biden was a lame duck president for six months. That would've been a perfect time to give his fellow Democrats the middle finger by speaking his mind, rather than toeing the line of a party that wanted nothing to do with him. It's Democratic lawmakers and leaders of state interscholastic athletic organizations who are wildly out of touch with the American public on this issue, not the Republicans. When it comes to males competing in women's sports, it's an issue where the Democrats deserve most of the blame. It mostly happens in Democratic-leaning states -- hence, why transgender athletes won girls' track state titles in Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire last year (before New Hampshire banned the practice). And since Democrats in liberal states won't stop it from happening, male athletes will continue winning girls' awards and championships.And when a bill that would've prevented the practice came up for a vote in the U.S. Senate earlier this year, zero Democrats supported it. Zero! Instead of defending the practice, many of them said it was a local issue -- but it's these local liberal communities that let it happen. Maybe now that Biden's not president, he'll finally start speaking up about this injustice. Don't count on it, though -- he has been out of office for over three months and there still hasn't been a word from him.Biden's lack of leadership here is one of many reasons why he was a failed president. He should've used every opportunity he had to make life better for the American people. Hiding your thoughts and refusing to take action on a common-sense issue because it eschews Democratic Party orthodoxy isn't leadership..But it is Joe Biden.
