Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to more than a few LGBTQ+ activists and advocates, has gone over to the dark side.
It’s because Newsom stated in a podcast in March that it was “deeply unfair” to have transgender women — people who were male at birth — compete against women in sports.
Newsom was slammed for supposedly kowtowing to President Trump, trolling for votes in a possible race for president, or simply being a devil in Democratic clothing.
One, regardless of how you view Newsom politically, should give the “devil” his due.
Those in the LGBTQ+ community calling him a traitor to progressive ideals need to drop the rhetoric and get a reality check.
If any politician deserves credit for fast-tracking basic rights for gays et al in the United States, and by extension the world, Newsom is among them.
It is why people who live 100 percent in the here and now while selectively ignoring the past and with total disregard for the future, need to resist instantaneous reptilian responses.
Newsom, on Feb. 12, 2004, changed the course of gay rights.
And he risked his political career to do so.
Four years before, a solid majority of California voters re-affirmed a 1977 legislative decision to declare marriage could only be between a man and woman.
Newsom was mayor of San Francisco at the time.
He openly defied the state law, the Sacramento power structure, and the statewide will of the majority of voters by ordering the San Francisco County clerk to issue marriage licenses to same sex-couples.
It ignited a political storm and forever put Newsom in the crosshairs of a large swath of voters in and beyond California’s borders.
San Francisco issued same-sex marriage licenses for 20 days before then California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and various groups successfully stopped it with a lawsuit that also invalidated those marriages that did take place.
The California Supreme Court, on an appeal the same year, agreed Newsom’s actions violated state marriage statutes.
The decision put in motion a second lawsuit filed by the City and County of San Francisco seeking a declaration that “all California statutory provisions limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman violates the California Constitution.”
That eventually led to a 4-3 California Supreme Court decision in 2008 ruling the “equal respect and dignity” of a marriage is a “basic civil right” and cannot be denied same-sex couples.
The ruling was based on the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution.
Anyone who doesn’t think what Newsom did led to leveling the playing field in many ways for the current LGBTQ+ community is wearing blinders or is just plain ignorant of any aspect of LGBTQ+ civil rights history that doesn’t fit their narrative of the way things should be.
Putting aside the small number of births each year in a world of 8 billion people involving the condition known as Disorder of Sexual Development that involves a sliding scale from male to female dealing with levels of testosterone and such, the issue is fairness when it comes to transgender women in sports.
What is now the well-documented use of testosterone in the 1970s and 1980s created a team of East German women athletes who dominated the Olympics and other international sporting events.
It underscores the impact of levels of testosterone in bodies.
The normal range of testosterone levels in women is 15 to 70 nano-grams per deciliters compared to 300 to 1,000 in men.
Testosterone is tied directly into muscle mass development and strength.
That’s the science, pure and simple.
So how does calling transgender women in women sports “deeply unfair” translate into being anti-LGBTQ+?
And if it does, is not the flip side true that’s its anti-biological women?
It might sound like a flippant statement, but it isn’t.
The mockery of the issue made by the California Interscholastic Federation for a one-time exception for athletes qualified for the girls state track meet that there would be a fourth medal issued if a transgender female placed in the top three isn’t about trying to find middle ground.
It’s about side stepping the issue.
The CIF has done a Herculean job over the years elevating girls sports from a high school club activity where girls competed against clubs from other schools to the same interscholastic programming level of boys sports.
The exception granted by the CIF nicely glosses over the fact a mirror situation at the state level meet would never happen with the boys side as the odds are basically nil that a transgender boy would place in the top three, let alone qualify for the state meet.
That means girls sports are the only ones that need to deal with transgenders displacing “girls” on a large scale compared to transgenders and boys teams.
The bottom line is it is a competitive fairness issue and not a sexual orientation issue.
LGBTQ+ advocates can argue all they want and contend those who oppose them are bigots.
But at the end of the day “rights” are not absolute wins it comes to rules regarding the interaction of people in a civilized society.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community, just like any other community whether it is straight or whatever, should have the same basic rights.
But the areas of gray pile up fairly quick.
You have the right to free speech but it is conditioned as it doesn’t extend to inciting a riot, falsely yelling fire in a crowded venue, or even libel
All rights are basically situational in various degrees in order to have a civil society and therefore not absolute.
And it would also be “deeply unfair” if boys were allowed to compete in girls’ sports when there was a team already available for boys.
Newsom is not an enemy to the LGBTQ+ community.
His opening dialogue on what might be aptly called a fringe issue that doesn’t undermine basic rights is a good thing for the LGBTQ+ cause.
It gets people taking and hopefully to think instead of the shallow rat-a-tat proclamations and responses that dominate what passes today as debate.
Transgenders are human just like everyone else.
They have rights.
But just like everyone else, they are not absolute rights.
The only way to make sure the social fabric we weave in this nation is strengthen is for everyone to understand and appreciate others of different ethnicities, nationalities, religious orientation, gender grouping (even those beyond traditional male/female), and such is for people to be willing to reach out to those they disagree with to listen and to talk.
Slamming Newsom, especially given the pivotal role he played in helping assure LGBTQ+ rights, is a sign that those doing it only want a world that is 100 percent aligned to their reality.