Fairness in Athletics: The Transgender Debate

Note: I’ve gotten a lot of pushback from fellow Christians on my recent post—especially around sentences that some see as capitulating Biblical standards or soft-pedaling sin. I hear you, and I want to be crystal clear: I’m not bending on what Scripture says. Genesis 1:27 tells us God made humans male and female; Matthew 19:4-6 sets heterosexual marriage as His design for sexual union. Anything outside that—heterosexual sin, homosexual sin, or otherwise—is rebellion against God’s order. No debate there. Some of you pointed to the militant edge in parts of the transgender community, and I see it too—demands for acceptance can feel like a steamroller, and that’s not something I’m ignoring.

But here’s where I’m coming from: I’m not writing this as a pastor policing the world’s sin—I’m a Christian trying to navigate a messy, secular arena with a proposal that works for everyone, not just us. Look at Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13. He’s blunt: we don’t judge outsiders for their sin—that’s God’s job. Our business is holding professing Christians accountable when they claim Christ but live against His Word. I’m not here to bless transgender ideology or excuse rebellion; I’m trying to meet non-Christians where they are, like Paul did in Athens (Acts 17), to build a bridge for truth—not burn it down. The church disciplines its own; the world gets the gospel.

So, this athletic fairness system—birth certificates, Barr body testing, a discreet review panel—isn’t about approving anyone’s lifestyle. It’s about creating a standard that respects biological reality (God’s design, if you will) while treating all people—Christian or not—with the dignity they deserve as image-bearers (Genesis 1:26). Women’s sports need protecting; Riley Gaines’ fight shows why. Transgender athletes, even if I disagree with their choices, aren’t monsters—they’re humans chasing a dream in the arena, just like the rest. My proposal isn’t capitulation—it’s a practical line in the sand that says, “Here’s how we compete fairly, whatever you believe.”

I get the heat—this topic’s a lightning rod. Some of you think I’m too soft, that I should call out sin louder. Fair enough; I’ll keep sharpening my words. But I’m not here to signal virtue to the culture—I’m here to honor God’s truth while wrestling with a real-world problem. Let’s keep talking. How do you see this playing out in light of Scripture and the church’s role?

Competition is a visceral thing. It’s not just a race or a scoreboard—it’s years of sweat, pain, and psyche poured into a single moment. For athletes, the arena is a war, a proving ground where the stakes are as emotional as they are physical. Victory brings hubris; defeat, shame. And when the rules of that fight feel uneven, the fallout isn’t just about who won—it’s about what the whole battle means. Nowhere is this tension more raw than in the debate over transgender athletes in women’s sports—a debate that’s found a fierce advocate in Riley Gaines, whose story embodies the struggle for fairness.

I’ve been wrestling with this since 2016, when I watched a man—or someone assigned male at birth—dominate the women’s 800-meter race at the Olympics. “What are we doing?” I wrote then in this post Rio Reactions 2016. “How is this fair to the women in the race?”

Nearly a decade later, the question persists, but it’s grown more nuanced. Fairness matters—to the women who’ve trained their bodies to the breaking point, and to transgender athletes navigating their own paths. Riley Gaines knows this firsthand. A 12-time All-American swimmer at the University of Kentucky, she tied for fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Championships with Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who’d competed on the men’s team before transitioning. When the podium moment came, Thomas got the fifth-place trophy; Gaines was handed sixth and told hers would come later. “It’s not about the trophy,” Gaines has said, “but how the NCAA treated me and all female athletes when presented with a difficult situation. They put us on the back burner to protect a small minority and save face.” That betrayal lit a fire in her—she traded dental school plans for a campaign to protect women’s sports, and I admire her grit.

Empathy’s where we start. As a Christian, my faith shapes my view: I believe God made us male and female, and I object to sexual reassignment—especially for kids—seeing gender dysphoria as a mental and physical wrestle best met with care, not permanent changes, until adulthood. Yet biology’s not always black-and-white. A small number of babies are born with mixed genetic signals—intersex conditions like Klinefelter’s or Turner’s—and that’s not their choice. Transgender folks face real struggles, too, ones I don’t fully grasp. They deserve compassion, not scorn. When they enter sports, they’re chasing the same rush of competition we all admire—not trying to ruin it.

But empathy can’t override fairness. Women’s sports exist to give half the population a shot at that rush, free from the biological edges—like muscle mass or bone density—that testosterone often grants those born male. When a trans woman who’s gone through male puberty competes, the visceral stakes shift. A swimmer or runner who’s clawed through years of training can lose by a whisper—not because of effort, but because of a body they can’t match. The shame of that defeat cuts deeper; the victor’s hubris feels less earned. Gaines felt this violation up close, forced to share a locker room with Thomas, a 6-foot-4 biological male, and undress inches apart. Her campaign isn’t just talk—it’s born from that raw, personal wound.

So how do we fix this?

Birth certificates are flimsy—they’re paper, not proof. Hormone levels help, but they’re too late if puberty’s already done its work. Barr body testing, which I learned about in the early 2000s, offers a sharper edge. It checks for an inactivated X chromosome—a marker of XX genetics—and it’s cheap, quick, and concrete. If you’ve got a Barr body, you’re likely female in the way that matters for sports. If not, you’re likely not. It’s not foolproof—rare cases like androgen insensitivity (XY but female-presenting) complicate it—but it’s a solid piece of the puzzle.

My Suggested Plan

Here’s my pitch, inspired by Gaines’ fight: a three-step standard, applied before competition. Step one: your birth certificate sets the baseline. Step two: Barr body testing confirms the biology. Step three: a discreet governing body—say, a panel of doctors and ethicists—reviews appeals privately. No public shaming, no mid-season chaos. If you’re born female, test XX, and live as a woman, you’re in. If you’re trans or intersex, the panel weighs your case—hormones, puberty history, all of it—against a clear benchmark: does your body align with the female baseline women’s sports were built to protect? If yes, you compete. If no, you don’t. Not out of hate, but out of fairness to the arena.

This won’t satisfy everyone. Some will call it too tough on trans athletes; others, too soft. But competition isn’t about feelings—it’s about that visceral clash where effort meets outcome. Women deserve a field where their investment can shine, as Gaines has fought for. Trans athletes deserve a system that’s clear and respectful, not a free-for-all that leaves everyone bitter. Her stand—“they put us on the back burner”—echoes through every race, every meet, pushing us to make this work. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s a step toward a fight we can all believe in.

A final thought: There are enough people (and profit) to arrange transgender competition. It cuts against the grain of those who has a real agenda of inclusion... but I believe acceptance and protection is all you can really hope for. I would fiercely fight that no one should ever suffer harm or threats to life or livelihood based on preferences and I am a supporter of free speech and liberty (free to choose but not free to choose the consequences..another debate)- but for the sake of our women, we need to end this transgender inclusion in women's athletics.

What do you think—can we make this work?