Legacy media outlets are touting a “transgender” athlete who will participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics for Team USA. However, the story is not what it seems.
Nikki Hiltz, who identifies as nonbinary, will compete in the women’s 1500-meter race in Paris this summer. Hiltz is a woman competing against other women. That’s been true for Hiltz’s entire track career. It just happens that Hiltz identifies as a made-up gender, piquing the legacy media’s interest.
Headline after headline celebrates Hiltz as a “transgender” and/or “nonbinary” athlete. A headline from NBC’s Today, for example, said, “What to know about Nikki Hiltz, the trans and nonbinary runner who’s Olympics-bound.”
A CBS story emphasized that Hiltz’s Olympic qualifier came at the end of Pride Month, “adding significance to the monumental moment.”
“I wanted to run this for my community,” Hiltz said in a post-race interview. “All of the LGBT folks, yeah, you guys brought me home that last 100. I could just feel the love and support.”
Nothing is unique about what Hiltz is doing. Despite identifying as a made-up gender, Hiltz functionally lives life as a woman. No cosmetic changes can alter that biological reality — not even an elective double mastectomy, something Hiltz wants.
There’s no reason to oppose Hiltz competing in the women’s Olympics on biological grounds. The case differs from other so-called transgender athletes in two key ways. One is that Hiltz lacks a biological advantage over the other competitors. It’s still a matchup of XX chromosomes against XX chromosomes. The other is that having Hiltz compete against other women doesn’t affirm the belief that people can change their gender, even if the legacy media pretend otherwise.
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Hiltz is similar to Canadian soccer player Quinn, who identifies as nonbinary and competes on the country’s women’s national team. The legacy media also pretend Quinn is something other than a woman despite her being a woman who competes against other women in soccer.
If the legacy media want to report on transgender athletes, they can start with the five males who won high school girls outdoor track and field state championships in different states this past spring. Those instances are far more noteworthy than Hiltz competing where she belongs.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.