LETTER TO THE SPORTS EDITOR
Brian Hoffman’s self-serving, ill-informed editorial on Hello Bathroom Law, Goodbye Stagg Bowl was a disappointment, as his comments usually are when non-sports issues enter his mind. He over simplified an issue regarding privacy and safety.
Apparently, Mr. Hoffman believes there are no morals superior to the making of money and nothing that is more important than keeping Virginia in good standing with the NCAA, Hollywood and the entertainment industry’s liberal wing. Mr. Hoffman is lacking in principles when he says the bathroom law requiring males to use one bathroom and females to use another is insensitive and “bullying”. If anything, it is the other way around. When an extremely small fraction of a percentage of the total population, demand that others give up their rights and safety so they can feel more normal, they are doing the bullying.
The NCAA still restricts transgender males who identify as women from competing on women’s teams. So, the NCAA’s stance on the North Carolina bathroom law is pretty hypocritical. This only makes sense, since males, even after anti-testosterone and hormone therapy, still maintain a muscle mass and endurance advantage over females, which is increased with continued exercise.
Mr. Hoffman wants people to believe times have changed and we all have to fall in line with the new morals of the extreme left. What he fails to understand and mention is the cost to persons forced to comply with this “new normal”. Although the so-called bathroom law (requiring persons to use public bathrooms, showers, changing rooms and locker rooms designated to correspond with the biological sex that appears on their birth certificate) seems like common sense and is not offensive to the vast majority of people, Mr. Hoffman believes that would align you with “zealots”.
Not excluding the athletics debate, there are legitimate safety concerns for persons forced into the vulnerable situations that accompany undressing in secluded areas (bathrooms, locker rooms, showers and changing rooms, etc.). The Centers for Disease Control concludes that one in six males and one in four females under the age of 18 will be sexually assaulted. Also, is estimated that only 10% of all sexual abuse is reported. Most people know that open access to bathrooms, etc. provide ways for predators to get close to children, women and others who are vulnerable.
Maybe Mr. Hoffman and the NCAA think that open co-ed everything poses no danger. However, the vast majority of victims will tell you that had access been reasonably denied, most crimes would have been prevented. Laws are more than words on paper. The majority of individuals and groups who support North Carolina’s stance felt that the federal government’s attempt to open up areas of normal privacy by actual-gender to co-ed was detrimental to children and society at large.
Remember this all started when the Obama administration’s Justice Department sent guidelines of the Transgender Students Mandate to every school district in the nation requiring that:
Transgender students must be given free access any room (bathroom, locker room, showers, etc.) that correspond to their perceived sex rather than their true sex. Schools may not provide a gender-neutral bathroom available for transgender students.
Transgender students must be allowed to play on the sports team of their perceived gender rather than their true gender.
Children are allowed to change their gender on school paperwork without parental notification or permission.
On sports class trips, school are prohibited from providing transgender students with a separate hotel room. Transgender students must be allowed to sleep in rooms with students of their perceived gender rather than their true gender.
This mandate threatens a loss of federal funds to any school not in compliance.
If the Virginia Legislature goes forward with a North Carolina-like bathroom law, it will be a positive step to ensure the safety of the vulnerable and stop an attempt of the left to force their morals on the vast majority of the Commonwealth’s citizens with the bullying tactics most recently used by the NCAA.
For Mr. Hoffman… stick to sports.
Richard Martindell
New Castle, VA
