One of the first and most important things we learned in the school yard was the concept of fair play.

When running a race, you don’t start before the whistle is blown. In a game of hide-and-seek, you don’t peek to see the location of the other players. Starting the race before your opponents and peeking to see the location of your hiders violate the principle of fair play by giving you an unfair advantage.

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That concept of unfair advantage is the very reason we do not support the move toward allowing biological males to compete in female sports. It is a highly charged political topic, but it should not be if those debating would remember what we were taught as kids about fair play.

It doesn’t matter where you fall on the political divide. Both the far left and the far right should be able to concede that men are biologically stronger than women.

This is not a distinction of value, but a distinction of difference. Men are not smarter, more valued, or more worthy of praise than women—their biological makeup simply renders them stronger, faster, and bigger than women.

The issue of whether a boy should dress like and identify as a girl, or undergo surgery to “become” a girl, is a moral and ethical issue for another article. But the question of whether a boy, once he identifies as a girl, should have the right to play on the girl’s sports team is easy. The answer is no.

Those who answer “yes” point to the trauma that transgender students often face, and the hurdles and emotional scars they already bear for being different….

[I]t is precisely the physical difference that violates fair play.

Today, female athletes who have worked their entire lives to become the best in their sport are now being edged out of competition and medals by athletes who have the physical advantage of being boys.

For those who believe these are just kid sports and no one is really getting hurt, just look to the number of female athletes who are disadvantaged in college recruitment and scholarships. . . .

Today, families who object to having their daughters compete against transgender students are being bullied into silence.

(Excerpts from Dee Wilbon and Deana Bass Williams article on Daily Signal.)