“It’s crazy!” - Former CFB HC Lou Holtz weighs in on fairness in transgender athlete competition
Lou Holtz, the former college football head coach, shared his views on the ongoing transgender debate in sports. On Sunday, Holtz, who spent more than three decades as a college football head coach, with his most notable stint being with Notre Dame from 1986 to 1996, posted on X, stating:
"I was happy when Title IX came out. But here we are, many years later, and now we can’t even ensure women competing against women. It’s crazy!"
Title IX was a landmark piece of legislation in terms of equality in sports. Signed in 1972, Title IX prohibits any discrimination based on the sex of the person at any public education institution. This includes many universities.
The legislation paved the way for the development of women's sports, allowing them to form varsity teams alongside the preexisting men's team, and giving girls the opportunity to become national champions.
Title IX allowed girls to play against girls. However, as Lou Holtz mentioned, nowadays biological males who identify as women are allowed to play against girls.
Bob Costas gives his opinion as well as Lou Holtz
However, Lou Holtz is not the only person who has recently chimed in on this debate. Legendary Olympic Games broadcaster Bob Costas also shared his views on the topic.
"It’s not transphobic to say ‘Let’s inject some common sense here,' A lot of this is murky. We know that some people who use this as an issue actually are hostile towards trans people, or people who after carefully considered decisions at a certain point in life, decide that they’ll be happier and closer to their true selves," Costas said, per OutKick.
Costas then used the sport of Boxing to help make his point. In all combat sports, not only is there a strict (and meaningful) division between the sexes, but they also have weight classes to prevent a massive disparity between opponents.
"Sugar Ray Leonard didn’t fight Mike Tyson. There were contemporaries. Sugar Ray was a welterweight, Mike was a heavyweight, alright? If someday the best player in the WNBA can play in the NBA, everybody would applaud. But if the worst guy at the end of the bench on the worst team in the NBA went to the WNBA and averaged 40 points a game, everybody knows that’s [unfair]."
At the end of the day, sports at all levels need to be fair for everyone involved. The Transgender Debate will continue, and more people like Lou Holtz will share their opinions.