By John F. Banzhaf III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D., Professor of Public Interest Law, George Washington University Law School
Top officials at a Florida high school, including the principal and the male coach of a girl’s high school volleyball team, have been removed from the school, and are under investigation for possible disciplinary action, because a M2F transgender student was permitted to compete in violation of a Florida law.
The law limits participation on girls’ and women’s teams to persons who are actually (anatomically) female. The law in question had just been held by a judge not to violate this same student’s federal rights under the Constitution or Title IX.
But, regardless of the constitutionality or unfairness of the law itself, this removal is clearly grossly unfair and an unreasonable overreaction because the coach was unaware that the player was secretly anatomically male; the student reportedly had not yet “come out.”
Indeed, to require all coaches – especially those who are male – to verify that each and every member of girls’ teams are actually anatomically female would seem to constitute a gross invasion of the privacy of all female athletes.
A more important issue is whether, as some are claiming, it is unfair to bar someone from playing on a sports team simply because the student has a penis.
This is not unfair, and that it happens in thousands of schools every year, including many with no laws limiting what teams’ transgender students can play on.
My own George Washington University [GWU] research suggests this is a much more serious example because of the much larger number of students discriminated against, and because the discrimination does more than just keep them off a team; it also denies them valuable monetary scholarships, and preference in admission to GWU as well as to other major universities.
GWU, like many other universities, has a women’s NCAA volleyball team, but no corresponding men’s NCAA volleyball team.
So, every year more than 40 skilled male volleyball players now at GWU, who may have endured hundreds of hours of grueling workouts, and passed up many social and other activities to become highly skilled volleyball players in high school, cannot play at all on any NCAA volleyball team, obtain an athletic scholarship in volleyball, or obtain preferential treatment in applying for admission, etc.
Clearly, many if not most of the males, who are limited to playing only club volleyball at GWU because they are banned from the women’s NCAA team, are better and stronger players than those on the women’s NCAA volleyball team.
If they could compete, either as males or by claiming to be M2F transsexual players, they would benefit from the monetary scholarships, preferences in admission (and sometimes in class scheduling), and the opportunity to play volleyball as a higher competitive levels based upon his own observations as a volleyball coach.
Thus, male volleyball players applying to GWU, or to other universities which don’t have a men’s NCAA volleyball team, might have a strong incentive to claim to identify as female to get an advantage in the admissions process, and possibly earn thousands of dollars in competing for an athletic scholarship.
So, those who argue that it is unfair to bar one Florida male in high school from playing on the girl’s team – where no monetary scholarships, preference in admission, etc. are at stake – would then have to explain why it is not unfair to bar dozens of mails every year from playing on any NCAA volleyball teams at their university.
Further, out of about 13,000 male students at GWU, about 50 are serious volleyball players, and all are denied the opportunity to play on an NCAA team.
In contrast, since only an estimated 1%-2% of students are M2F transsexuals, and only a tiny percentage of those would want to play competitive sports at high school or college, the effect of laws in some 23 states, limiting participation on girls’ and women’s athletic teams to females, has a much smaller impact.
Indeed, as the Washington Post admitted: “transgender youth being a very small minority of the U.S. population — less than 2 percent of high school students, according to a 2019 CDC report — and the percentage of transgender girls likely to play sports and compete at an elite level is even more limited.”
I have previously pointed out that there are three valid and important reasons for limiting players on girls’ and women’s teams to females:
and that the number of females seriously injured by males playing as females continues to grow.
In one very serious case likewise involving high school volleyball in which a girl was seriously injured by a much stronger male playing as a female,
SPORTS LAW EXPERT – Professor Maintains that Trans Athletes Causing Serious Injuries to Girls, it was reported that:
“In an earlier situation involving play between two high school girl’s volleyball teams, a M2F player was able to spike the ball so forcefully that it caused ‘severe’ and possibly permanent injuries to his biological female opponent, who was knocked to the ground and suffered a concussion. As a result of this hard-hit spike, the injured girl is experiencing long-term concussion symptoms, such as vision problems, Indeed, her injuries are so severe that she has not yet been medically cleared to return to play, and her school has been forced to forfeit all its games against the school with the biological male volleyball player in order to protect its own girls against similar serious injuries.”
Based on my own experience as a competitive volleyball player, why even a seemingly gentle and non-contact sport such as girl’s volleyball nevertheless creates the very real risk of serious and possible permanent injuries if males are permitted to play and spike the ball against females:
“’I also was knocked on my ass by a hard hit spike in volleyball, but it took a 6 foot 4 inch Olympic contender to accomplish it, and we were playing with a volleyball net set at men’s height,’ says Banzhaf, who notes that the official height of the net in female volleyball competition is a full 7 and 1/2 inches lower (and therefore much easier to hit over) than it is for males [7 feet, 11+ 5/8 inches for boys and 7 feet, 4+ 1/8 inches for girls].”
He continues: “That’s why in coed volleyball when both genders are playing, the net must by the rules be set at the higher men’s height to protect women against the harder hitting spikes taller and more muscular male players can deliver, especially on a very low net. At age 16, boys are also typically more than 4 inches taller than girls; in addition to their additional upper-body strength, longer arms, and stronger leg muscles which enable them to leap higher and hit much harder when spiking the ball. The risk of a concussion or similar serious injury to a female athlete forced to compete with a biological male is obviously much greater in contact sports where muscular strength and size is even more important, such as football, judo, boxing, hockey, and wrestling.”
As an example, someone weighing 220 pounds would not be able to box or wrestle in the lightweight division, even if he believed that he only weighed 110 lbs, and was much weaker than many competitors in the lightweight division.
Similarly, a person aged 25 would not be permitted to compete in a senior Olympics or senior division of a marathon race even if he or she felt like a 70-year-old, and in fact ran slower than competitors in their 80s, he notes.
No one would suggest that excluding them from competing in these categories was unfair, or that those organizing the competition should accept their clearly-contrary-to-fact claims regarding their weight or age, any more than they should accept such claims relating to gender.
