There are only two coherent positions (1) abolish separate men’s and women’s competitions and teams and let women (try) to compete with men in all sports; or (2) separate the sexes in athletics by, well, *sex*–a biological category–not by “gender” or “gender identity.”

In many sports, at all levels, we have separate men’s and women’s (and boys’ and girls’) competitions and (in the case of team sports) teams. Why? Obviously, it is because of differences between men and women (and boys and girls). No one doubts or denies this. Nor does anyone doubt or deny that the separation of the sexes in athletics is for the sake of females–who would have far fewer opportunities if males and females competed together.

OK. If, however, the reason for separating the sexes is differences between them, then we must ask: What types of differences? Do we separate the sexes in athletics because of *psychological* differences between males and females? Or because of *physical*–*biological*–differences?

To ask the question is to answer it. But to answer it– and do so honestly–is to acknowledge the contradiction in permitting males who “identify” as female to compete in *women’s* (or *girls*) athletics.

There are only two coherent positions (1) abolish separate men’s and women’s competitions and teams and let women (try) to compete with men in all sports; or (2) separate the sexes in athletics by, well, *sex*–a biological category–not by “gender” or “gender identity.”

The first of these possibilities, while coherent, is profoundly undesirable. In fact, it would disadvantage women and girls so severely as to be unjust. (This injustice is on display now where males are competing in women’s sports.) The “problem” with the second, of course, is that it offends and disrupts the ideology now dominant among those whom John McWhorter calls “the Elect” and Thomas Sowell labels “the Annointed.” And the Elect (or Annointed) possess what David Brooks rightly describes as a “monopoly on cultural power.” By and large, what they say goes.

Robert P. George in a Facebook post.