NRO: The Left Is Weaponizing Sports

  The details here aren't that great, but I agree with the general sentiment. I think it's alarming that the NCAA has decided to move games out of North Carolina over the transgender bathroom (and other facilities) bill. Not because I'm sure what I think about it--I'm not. But, rather, because North Carolina's position is perfectly reasonable. It might not be optimal, and I certainly have doubts about it, but it is not obviously bigoted. All it does is add the force of law to the long-standing and almost-universally-supported practice of segregating public restrooms, locker rooms etc. by sex. Most people have assumed that this already was a law. If one side is crazy here, it's the other side, the side that's pretending that the theory of trangenderism that burst onto the scene two years ago, which makes little sense, and which is not in accordance with the best-available psychological evidence is so obviously true that only bigots can oppose it. The NCAA has no earthly business sticking its nose into this issue...and on the side that makes far less sense to boot. This is not segregation of water fountains by race. This is about adding the force of law to a system that everybody already assumed had the force of law...and doing so on the basis of half-baked theories and quarter-baked concepts (like "gender identity") that can't stand up to ten minutes of sustained and reasonably objective thought..
   So...is the NCAA planning to boycott every state that deviates from whatever trendy PC policy proposal that might crop up from here on out? Because we should all be alarmed if organizations that are supposed to be completely non-political start weighing in so readily and irrationally on policy disagreements...especially by punishing any and all dissent. And, of course, it will always be on the one side, and never on the other...
   Again, my current view is that NC might ought to have left the law out of it...however...there is no such thing as "gender identity"--it's a deeply confused, nearly-incoherent concept (or pseudo-concept). And our long-standing policy is to segregate public restrooms and locker rooms by sex. (Note: it's not actually right to say "biological sex," since that's the only kind of sex there is...) It's the left that's aiming for massive social change, not North Carolina. North Carolina's move can plausibly be characterized as conservative (in the good sense of defending the status quo at least long enough for the issue to be discussed rationally.) It is utterly irrational for the NCAA--which has no idea what it's talking about on this issue--to punish NC for failing to adopt a far-left position that involves abandonment of a long-established institution on the basis of an incoherent theory backed by virtually no evidence. I suppose the NCAA might argue that presumption goes to the status quo ante...but it's not completely clear what should count as the status quo ante here. Sure, NC made move by passing the law...but it passed a law in response to...let's face facts...a bizarre new trend that has led many men to want to use women's facilities. NC can be seen as trying to protect the normal, universally-accepted (and plausibly important and just) system with the law. Some law-makers probably had bad motives...but the law isn't inherently bigoted nor obviously wrong. More importantly: if I thought the NCAA had thought this through and understood the issues and come down against NC on the basis of a disagreement about what constituted the status quo, that would be one thing. But I don't think there's any chance at all that's true. Rather, I think that the cultural tide is now moving so powerfully in the direction of a kind of loony version of liberalism and identity politics that hopping on every such band wagon is now what counts as cultural neutrality.
   We do not want the NCAA ending up as a de facto policy-making organization. But that's exactly what's going to happen if this keeps up. No state is going to stand up against pressure like this for long. Will the NCAA back off in the unlikely event that the courts rule in NC's favor? Well, it's willing to punish NC with no legal ruling in place, so I'm doubtful that a legal victory will matter to them.