Transgender woman CeCe Telfer currently sits at #2 in NCAA D2 100 hurdles - Watch her DOMINATE here (video)

You are absolutely correct that if a high school teacher were to argue that adults should be able to have sex with minors, he’d be fired instantly and no jury in the world would find his speech protected by the first amendment.

This is a perfect example of the kind of “Outrageously offensive or dangerous to others” talk that, as you pointed out (while calling it “my words”), the Court in Martin v. Parrish said loses the First Amendment protection it would otherwise have if it were found to be comment on a matter of public concern.

Other examples might include Rosanne Barr’s comments about Valerie Jarrett (which got her fired from “the Connors” TV Show) or the Greek triple jumper’s joke about Africans and the West Nile Virus which got her kicked off that country’s Olympic Team.

If your point is (and I hope I am stating it correctly) that no jury in the world would ever agree with me that the statements by the Coach at issue in this situation: that “ Telfer couldn’t cut it as a male athlete”and “men should not be allowed to compete against women” are significantly less outrageously offensive or dangerousness to others than a statement urging the legalization of statutory rape, I have to say that Martin v. Parrish doesn’t prove your point at all.

But the other point you make is clever and interesting, and will probably be the heart of Coach Emerson’s argument- what if in engaging in otherwise Constitutionally protected speech an individual shows themselves unqualified or morally or ethically unfit to actually do their job? I think that that is what Coach Emerson may in fact believe when he said the coach’s remarks were “unacceptable for a college track coach”, although it seems to me that he was more angry about being disrespected on his personal twitter account by an assistant coach than anything else.

I don’t think the Court in Martin v. Parrish directly addressed this possible second exception to the “First Amendment protection for comment on a matter of public concern” principle, and there may be some other cases that have so found. It’s certainly a reasonable proposition.

But the notion that the comments by the coach in this case actually do demonstrate that he is morally unfit to coach college athletes? What have you been smoking?

Really appreciated the Let's Run article on Ce Ce that is entirely fact based. People will always find a reason to be offended. I am tired of people name calling and calling everyone a "phobe" who disagrees with them. The facts are the facts. He was Craig. She is Ce Ce. Also a fact? XX is for girl, XY is for boy. Sorry for that "transphobic" statement. I give up...

Calling the athlete a man is actually sexual harassment. From the EEOC:

Sexual Harassment

It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person’s sex. Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.

Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.

Mission Statement from College of Staten Island Office of Diversity and Compliance:

The mission of the Office of Diversity and Compliance is to ensure compliance with federal, state, city laws, and CUNY policies as they pertain to nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment and assault, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This also includes overseeing recruitment efforts that promote affirmative action and comply with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations.

In order to promote and maintain a respectful learning and working environment for the entire campus community, this office is charged with the investigation and mediation concerning complaints of noncompliance with regard to discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, age, sex (including sexual harassment), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, marital status, partnership status, disability, genetic information, alienage, citizenship, military or veteran status, pregnancy, or status as a victim of domestic violence/stalking/sex offenses, or any other legally prohibited basis in accordance with federal, state and city laws.

Do you really want to be the guy (or gal) that defends this coach's first amendment right to discriminate and sexually harass an NCAA athlete? And you want to be the guy (or gal) that tries to argue this coach should be allowed to continue coaching NCAA athletes, any of whom one his team can come out as transgender at any moment?

What's next, are you going to defend slavery?

You may be surprised if I told you that I voted for Trump AND think this is just the greatest thing ever to happen to women's sports. My former deep-red burg in DuPage County voted overwhelmingly for Hillary in 2016. When this farce appears at the local high school track meet I will be in the stands, cheering on the swinging d-cks, wearing my pink p-ssy hat in full-bloom.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

If your question is serious and not simply rhetorical, the answer is that I would be honored to be the guy who defends this Coach’s right to make the statements that he made, because I believe in the First Amendment. (Alas, I am not licensed to practice Law in New York.) I would prefer that such a defense not be unnecessary, because the school where he coaches will respect and defend his rights.

I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would ever be asked to defend slavery, and I cannot think of anything I could say in its defense, but FYI once saw a profile of a young black attorney from the ACLU defending the Ku Klux Klan’s right to hold a rally! He said he was honored to do it because he believed in the First Amendment. (Guy’s been my hero/role model for 30 years.)

Now back to your latest attack:

You do realize, of course, that there is absolutely nothing in the EEOC regulations you cite that even mentions transgender persons?

Surely you are intelligent enough to also realize that the 1st Amendment’s protection of the right to free speech would prevail over an EEOC regulation, (if there were one that said what you made up) as long as the statement at issue was a comment about a matter of public concern. You did learn that the Constitution is the highest law of the land, didn’t you?

Try to stay with me on this: The matter of public concern that is the point of contention here is not whether person who is 46XY but identifies as a women can force society to call them a woman, it’s whether it is fair to allow them to compete against 46XX women. While you persist in nitpicking every word I write, the rest of the posters on this thread have been engaging in a robust debate over that point. To restate what I said above, I sincerely hope Coach Emerson does not get away with his assault on the First Amendment rights of the Coach who dared to voice his opinion on the issue. I resign myself to the fact that I will not be able to enlist your support in that fight, but hope as a result of your through rigorous scrutiny the righteousness of my cause has been made clear. Good luck to you, too, in your sincere quest to impose political correctness at the expense of both robust debate and fair competition.

The transgender advocates keep trying to move the issue onto the ground of the rights of minorities in society, which is a completely separate issue from the question of whether it is fair that they be permitted to compete against XX women in sport.

You can’t be serious. Female sport is an exclusive discriminating classification based on biology, not on delusional thinking

Armstronglivs wrote:

I wonder how the coach would feel if he had daughters who were losing to trans athletes. Or saw all the women's records being decimated by trans athletes - but not athletes he was coaching. Would he be ok with trans athletes sharing the same changing room facilities and showers with his female athletes, or his daughters? I know women who wouldn't be happy with that. Being supportive of someone's competitive aspirations isn't without its complications in cases such as these. For myself, the issue is ultimately clear-cut: whatever the gender identification a person may have their biological sex is the crucial factor in sporting categories that are biological and not social or cultural. XY athletes have no place in women's sport. This has nothing to do with whatever other roles they may play in society.

Great post.

I told him if I was younger and didn't have kids (he has 5) I'd consider resigning. In the end, I think I'd probably do my job and coach heras I always tried to meet my athlete's needs as a person, but I would definitely tell her that while I support her in her effort to be true to herself, I don't think it's right. What about competing as a woman and running all the regular season meets and then bowing out when the championship meets come? It doesn't sound like anyone has told her they disagree with this decision. Has anyone had the guts to tell her they don't agree with that? I don't think they have.

What's wrong with that? Why do you need the accolades? You've been an athlete for a long time and never come close to winning a national title. So let's kick ass and work hard and see how good we can be but let's don't take the glory away from someone else.

i 100% agree. I'm fine with letting people participate as a compromise but not in competitions that count. Period. We can try to make it fair with hormone treatment but ultimately it's going to be impossible to make it fair as it's going to very so much by each sport.

As for the locker room, I did ask him that and he said at the DII level they don't have a locker room so that's not an issue.

But no, not only is she allowed to compete, she's being celebrated for competing. The NCAA has hired a writer and and is doing a profile on her. It would be incredibly hard to be transgender but I'm sorry we shouldn't be celebrating her as some modern day version of Jackie Robinson or Rosa Parks.

And what I don't get is if the NCAA is doing a profile on her, then why isn't the school being honest about the situation. Does a single press release they write mention the fact that she was on the men's team for 3 years?

Will the NCAA profile have a single dissenting voice in it? Will the interview me? I doubt.

It's amazing how the diversity message has gotten people to lose their common sense. I tried to interview the 2nd placer to see how she felt but she took the high road and wrote, "I would rather not comment on another athlete’s performance. I am happy with my performance after coming back from injury earlier this season. Our team had a great weekend with our best-ever finish at Nationals and I’m looking forward to continuing our success."

Here's my question. Has anyone told her they think it's unfair besides some bigot online? I'd love to see the 2nd placer or third placer say no. I"d love to see a forfeiture. The whole final DNS.

But people are being afraid of being labelled as bigots. My female liberal friend from college who works in the DC world is trying to think of a way to lead a fight against this. She says she's going to try to find a gay congressman to lead the charge as they are the only ones that might be immune to being labelled a bigot but i'm not so sure as Martina Navratilova has already been ripped by some.

What no one has talked about is how the Equality Act - which last week passed the House (but thankfully won't be taken up the Senate) would make it illegal to even require hormones. I feel like we could lose the 2028 Olympics as a result. And every single democratic congressman except for 1 was a co-sponsor of the bill. It's a joke.

Even people like Martina Navratilova realize it's insanity. She and Sanya Richards Ross and Dorian Coleman have asked for a sport exception to the equality act. Don't discriminate against these people in the work place but in sports, they have to be discriminated against.

Give me a call. You can call me on my cell phone today. What have I missed? What nuance or detail have I missed? I'm dead serious. Please call me at 8444-538-7786 ext 3.

A person who was born and raised as a biological male just won an NCAA title. That's a fact. As for nuance and details, I"ve contacted the NCAA, I've contacted her coach and I tried to contact her. Any details they want to get out, I've tried to uncover.

It's clear that the coach fears for his job if anything about her medical condition is released even though he told me he asked her if he could talk in general terms about the process with the NCAA. So I left that out as he doesn't deserve to be fired.

As for the NCAA, they have disappointed. They told me they'd get back to me yesterday. I wrote them at like 8 pm saying, "I thought you were going to get back to me." They wrote back at like 930 saying the transgender handbook answered all my questions which is ironic as I quoted the transgender handbook when I asked all of my questions.

So last night I wrote the following to them

But PLEASE call me or email me at

.

I am sick and tired of being called a bigot or not doing a good job on this. The entire world is scared to report on this. We've seen how powerful the PC police are . The MLK article was turned down by the Washington Post, Atlantic, Telegraph, etc.

I like your email.

But I don't agree with your talk about the NCAA. The reality is their appears to be no standards at all for the T treatment. And even if there was, you don't think it would be easy to cycle off ? Here is what Joanna Harper - who has made the transition from male to female - wrote me two days ago, "It is, however, true that transgender people might be tempted to cheat at sports, just like anyone else. It would be easy for any trans woman to stop taking her meds, and then her performance would increase. I have seen that with some of my subjects (who were still competing in the men’s division). The NCAA has not set a maximum T level for trans women, and I don’t believe that they do any independent verification of hormone levels. "

And even if she was on T levels, who cares. She wasn't an elite national level athlete as a man. Why should you get that opportunity as a woman.

Plus this is all unenforceable. If you allow it without treatment, and that's where we're headed with the equality act, there will be nothing from stopping a boy from going down to the DMV, changing his sex to female and then taking a full ride scholarship. Of course, thousands of people will do it given how expensive it is.

As for your friend who committed suicide, I'm sorry. That's awful. But transitioning isn't the greatest thing for everyone. I mean that's just not true.

I thought about changing it to the "born as a male" thing but thought that might be offensives as I thought she might claim she was labelled a male by others. So I left the word male out. So I was conflicted as I wanted people to know she wasn't born XY and then did at FTM transition and now was doing the reverse MTF transition.

Did the poster think of that? There are people who go FTM and then MTF.

your own words wrote:

If a high school teacher were to argue that adults should be able to have sex with minors on twitter, he'd be fired instantly and no jury in the world would find that to be a violation of his first amendment rights.

.

I've often thought about pedophilia. I mean the pedophiles seem to have a strong urge to do that. How far off are we from saying they can't control that genetic urge? We probably wouldn't let them act on it as you need consent but they can posses all the child porn they want.

I read a comment below the Washington Post coment on the martina navratilova article that I really liked. Here it is.

Actually if you read what I wrote, if you have permission to use their previous name, go for it. Using it without permission is what is insensitive.

Yes people take offense to a lot of different things. Once you get to know a trangender person, or learn about what they go through, I think deadnaming and being called the wrong pronoun, are the two things that sting the most, that along with people generally questioning them about which bathroom to use. I honestly don't think its too much to ask to not use someone's previous name... whats the big deal for you? If it is such a big deal to most transgender people...?

I can understand if you are ignorant to why this is a touchy subject, but once someone has pointed out to you that specifically deadnaming, can be very hurtful to many transgender people, isn't the mature and professional thing to do, apologize, and next time when you feel the need to deadname, ask permission first?

So Are you worried about how the rules might change to be less stringent than they are? or are you complaining the rules are too lose as they are and easy for a boy to go through 2 years as a woman in order to compete with women? As far as T-levels, what you fail to understand is that even if the NCAA is not monitoring it, the doctors DO. And I fail to see how you can just assume CeCe was cheating by not taking the testosterone inhibitors without proof that actually occured, in fact you don't even know when she started taking testosterone inhibitors, it could have been years ago..... Its a college competition, its not for money and its not the end of the world, its DII.... what is more important for academic institution to support inclusion of groups of people in society, or cut throat competition? I would say inclusion is far more important for academic institutions. Yes of course some people regret transitioning, just like anything else, but the vast majority are relieved when they are able to live as their true gender.

"Deadnaming" is itself an emotional and misleading term for someone who has simply changed their name. They are still biologically the same person they were before their name change. "Dead-naming" simply reflects an ideological view that we should be required to accept that a person has become, in every sense, what they identify with, and who they were before has somehow ceased to exist - has "died", in effect. Biologically, all of this is patently untrue.

Doctors monitored Lance, Ben Johnson, and countless other dopers. What you're saying is that doctors could help her cheat, keeping her testosterone far above levels any other woman could reach.

In response to a point above, trusting that a trans athlete has suppressed their T-levels when there are no external procedures for ensuring this has occurred is like believing that athletes will not dope if there are no controls imposed on doping.

But as former athletes like Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies have pointed out, the advantages DSD and trans athletes have is not confined to testosterone levels; they have bigger and stronger bones, muscles and greater cardiovascular capacity than XX women. DSD make up 0.01% of the population, yet the first three athletes in the Rio 800m were all DSD. The inclusion of trans athletes in women's sport will only increase the disproportionate domination of XY athletes in women's sport. Inclusion in society for trans people, regrettably perhaps, has a line, and that must be women's sports - or women will lose.

I'm generally ok with this approach in much of society, but not for sports reporting. The person has performances recorded under their previous name, and a responsible reporter would include it because it's relevant to the story. Anyone who wants to fact check the story for instance needs that info.