Transgender people have always been with us. They aren’t ‘pretending’ about anything

In the 1990s, I lived just off the 39th Street corridor, back when it was the home of $8 haircuts and a dive bar with shag carpet on the walls. Nichols Lunch down at Southwest Trafficway was a night owl magnet where you’d occasionally see a group of eight or so huddled around a table way at the back, even when the rest of the diner was mostly empty.

Their clothes weren’t casual, and often belonged to an earlier era: an emerald satin evening gown, a wide-brimmed hat, a fur stole. And when you looked closer, you realized these friends — most in their 60s and 70s — didn’t likely spend their days wearing dresses and makeup. I don’t know how they’d identify themselves, but it’s a safe bet they were cross-dressers, transgender women, or somewhere else on the very fuzzy spectrum of gender, sexual orientation and presentation.

Gender nonconformity wasn’t so unusual at Nichols Lunch, which shared a building with a raucous drag bar and where a tall, friendly trans waitress poured coffee and shuffled plates of eggs at breakfast.

A lot has changed for gay Americans since the ‘90s. In 1996, this newspaper posed a question in a headline about same-sex marriage that seems insulting today: “Let them marry?” As even the conservative Supreme Court (narrowly) affirmed not even seven years ago, Americans shouldn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to exercise their fundamental rights.

But for transgender people, progress has been a lot slower. That’s because sexual orientation — whom we’re attracted to — is a pretty simple concept. Gender identity is completely different: a mixture of biological characteristics and social roles that many people experience along a continuum.

We hear about being “trapped in the wrong body” and transitioning from one gender to another via hormones and surgery — but that’s not everyone’s reality. What’s more, not every nonconforming person has gender dysphoria. They can be gay, straight or bisexual. Some consider themselves nonbinary, neither male nor female. In other words, it’s complicated.

Just like it always has been. I remember the whispers when a middle school classmate’s parents divorced: Mrs. S had discovered that the cache of frilly lingerie in Mr. S’s desk drawer was his own, not a secret girlfriend’s. He was a father of three, and his Facebook profile tells me he continues to lead his life outwardly as a heterosexual man today.

This ambiguity is why Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s longtime habit of persecuting young transgender athletes as a political campaign tactic is so depressing. Debuting a new ad for her Senate bid this week, she declared on Facebook: “I won’t look away while woke liberals destroy women’s sports. Women’s Sports are for Women, not men pretending to be women. Some people are afraid to talk about it, not me.” The issue she seized on? A trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer, whose inclusion on the women’s team was even opposed by 16 fellow swimmers who sent an anonymous (of course) letter to the school.

So, no, nothing to do with Missouri. But as LGBT advocates have been warning for some time, social conservatives have found that public opposition to male-to-female transgender athletes polls well politically. And because these players’ numbers are so tiny, the odds are vanishingly small that the average voter will ever cross paths with even one, much less get to know that person. The LGBT website Outsports has been able to identify only 29 trans players in the country who have ever competed at the four-year or community college level.

I’m convinced the reason public opinion has shifted so quickly on the LGB part of LGBT rights is that while gay people aren’t many — estimates vary, but it’s generally 4-5% of the population — almost all of us have a gay or bisexual family member, friend or co-worker. But transgender people number only about half a percent, and they have great motivation to stay in the closet because of the open hostility leaders like Hartzler wear as a badge of honor.

Renee Richards, Caitlyn Jenner both elite athletes

Looking at Harzler’s attacks, it’s almost darkly comic that two of the only transgender women who are household names — Renee Richards and Caitlyn Jenner — are former elite athletes. Yet there’s hardly unanimity on the topic in the LGBT community. Despite Richards’ landmark victory in the 1977 discrimination case that paved the way for her to play as a woman in the U.S. Open, she criticized the International Olympic Committee’s “particularly stupid decision” in 2004 to allow transgender athletes to compete. Lesbian tennis icon Martina Navratilova vocally opposes trans participation in women’s games.

But let’s not forget this is about making kids into political scapegoats. Growing up is hard for all of us, and many young people find camaraderie and self-improvement in sports. No one becomes a top-tier swimmer by jumping into a pool on a lark at age 17. Barring these athletes from competing denies them something that’s been a major part of their lives for years.

It’s also absurd to think athletics organizers haven’t thought this topic through. The NCAA policy echoes the IOC’s, requiring trans participants to “document sport-specific testosterone levels” before competing. Still, the governing body USA Swimming “acknowledges a competitive difference in the male and female categories.” Short version: There’s no single, neat solution.

The most grotesque myth has to be rebuked, forcefully: No college athlete has ever “pretended” to be another gender to dominate a sport. That doesn’t happen.

From that ad hoc support group gathered around an all-night diner table to today’s soccer fields and swimming pools, society is starting to understand that people who fall outside gender norms have always been with us. It’s not trendy or fashionable. As unquenchable an attention sponge as Caitlyn Jenner is, she didn’t upend her life when she was 65 years old for the publicity. She’s not “pretending” to be who she is.

In addition to bearing the brunt of discrimination, trans people suffer from shockingly high rates of depression and suicidal ideation. More than half of transgender and nonbinary youths considered killing themselves in 2020, The Trevor Project reports. The last thing a college kid who’s had the courage to live as her authentic self needs is to be thrust into the spotlight as a prop for a political campaign.

This story was originally published February 17, 2022 at 5:00 AM.