Equality Act about fairness, not boys playing girls sports

Religious conservatives are clearly confused and agitated.

After all, they gave it their best effort, endlessly admonishing about “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” They were insistent that love is only love when it occurs between a man and a woman.

But despite decades of political campaigns, pulpit pounding and other fervent attempts to portray gays and lesbians as less deserving of God’s love, those battles have largely been lost. Thank God.

Now, they’re circling back to old tropes and doubling down on a new target — transgender people — in a new attempt to torpedo the Equality Act.

A mishmash of state laws currently governs LGBTQ protections. The result is that in about half of the states, LGBTQ people can lose employment, or be denied an apartment, or the right to be in a public space, due to their sexual identity or gender orientation. But they’d need a state-bystate guidebook to know where they have right and where they don’t.

The Equality Act would end that.

It passed in the House last month 224-206. But in the Senate, gaining enough votes to override a filibuster is threatened. The Act would amend the 1964 Civil Rights to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The current attempt to gut the legislation and muddy the waters is for statehouses to proclaim that their efforts are to protect vulnerable children, usually little girls. Little girls who want to use a girls’ only bathroom. Little girls who want to run track or play high school volleyball.

Indeed, a lot of the push back is framed around protecting girls’ participation in sports. Unfortunately, that argument is further stirred by some high-profile athletes who weighed in via a campaign that sought to protect Title IX, the federal law that has been used to guarantee equal access to sports for girls and women.

The Women’s Sports Policy Working Group supported the Equality Act, but with asterisks to reaffirm Title IX. Others argue that the distinctions they made are completely unnecessary.

The controversy only fueled other, less well-meaning campaigns. States are considering bills that would completely ban trans children from sports other than their assignedat-birth gender, would limit the type of medical attention they could gain as minors and prohibit people from updating their birth certificates by name and gender.

It’s a lot of effort to fight what science and the medical profession knows about gender dysphoria, the emotional distress of a person whose gender identity doesn’t conform with the sex they were assigned at birth.

It’s real and society can inflict suffering by pretending otherwise.

The general public needs to catch up and not be misled by politicians or religious leaders spouting bad science.

There is no rush of boys claiming to be trans, just so they can swoop in and dominate girls sports. The NCAA and the organizations governing international competitions have standards to monitor for fairness.

And criminals like pedophiles are not swarming to claim transgender status so they can lurk and attack girls in bathrooms.

Religious conservatives, just like religious liberals, can believe whatever they wish to uphold under the banner of faith.

But no one should be able to discriminate against someone in a public space and call it their faith, their religious right to do so. The Equality Act simply seeks to codify this fairness into law.

Mary Sanchez writes for The Kansas City Star.