Should trans women use women’s locker rooms?

To what extent should a transgender woman be treated the same as women who started life as female? That depends.

Let’s start with a definition. A trans woman is someone assigned male at birth but who identifies as a woman. A transitioning process can include legal, social and personal changes to live and be recognized as a woman.

Planet Fitness foolishly invited trouble when it decided to let men who identify as women use women’s locker rooms. A woman in the dressing room at a club in Alaska took a photo of a trans woman shaving facial hair and posted it on social media. The result was some boycotts of Planet Fitness that have hurt the franchiser’s bottom line.

Let’s be clear. How transgender men or women choose to dress or call themselves should not be an issue. If someone born as Bill decides “she” would rather go through life as Barbara, that should be “her” decision.

But there are realities. A trans woman can try to erase certain biological facts: Treatments can reduce muscle mass and change body shape, but none can change the muscle structure from male to female. Males and females have physical differences that a ballgown cannot change.

This leads us to the issue of transgender women participating in women’s sports competitions.

Tennis player Alicia Rowley was born as Allen Rowley. As a man, Rowley wasn’t such a hot shot. As Alicia, Rowley has been amassing victories in tennis competitions for women over 55. Letting trans women take over women’s sports is not fair to women born as women with female musculature.