Transgender Rights? Civil Rights? Common Sense?

                The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference has allowed transgender students to play on teams that “match their gender identities” since 2013. Karissa Niehoff, the group’s executive director, said that since the state has a policy barring boys from playing on girls’ teams, a transgender girl would be allowed to play on a girls’ team, but not a boys’ team. What? I’m so confused! So, if a boy identifies as a girl, he/she can play on the girls’ team, but not on the boys’ team? But, why can’t girls play on boys’ teams? I thought they had been granted that right years ago. I mean, if a “girl” who’s really a boy can take a leak in a girls’ bathroom, why can’t he/she play on a boys’ sports team?

                In a related story, Peyton Chapman, the principal of Lincoln High School in Portland Oregon, addressed the transgender rights issue thusly: “Some students may be uncomfortable with it, but we can’t let some people’s discomfort violate other people’s civil rights.” Let’s try this line of reasoning out on other “civil rights” issues. “Some people” were “uncomfortable” with slavery. Perhaps we shouldn’t have let their discomfort violate other people’s legal rights?

                In recent years, some college students have been famously "uncomfortable" with conservatives speaking on or near their campus, yet in virtually every case- First Amendment protections be damned- the conservatives (i.e. "other people's") civil rights have been expressly violated. Who is standing up for them?

                Where is their "safe space?"