Seth Udinski, FISM News
In both the American culture in general and the United Methodist Church in particular, the intensity of the debate over gender ideology continues to grow. This past month, a Pennsylvania segment of the UMC took a stand for the protection of female sports against an onslaught from the LGBTQ revolution.
The Christian Post reported that the UMC regional body of Western Pennsylvania voted in early June to affirm a resolution titled “End Degrading Behavior Against Female Athletes.” The declaration highlights the inherent advantages that biological men who identify as female hold over their biologically female counterparts.
The resolution states, “Biological men who participate in female sports are eliminating opportunities for women to enjoy the benefits of fair competition and diminish and demean their hard-earned athletic accomplishments.”
The resolution highlights the recent controversy surrounding transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who swam for several years in college as a man before undergoing gender reassignment and swimming in the women’s field. Thomas ranked far from the top in the men’s heat but rose to the top rankings after swimming in the women’s category.
The resolution cites Thomas as an illustration of the need for an adoption of the legislation by the UMC at large,
Pennsylvania has a clear example of this in the case of the University of Pennsylvania’s swimmer Lia Thomas who as a biological man holds an unfair advantage over competition in a women’s category, as evidenced by Thomas’ rankings that have bounced from No. 462 as a male to No. 1 as a female…The Western PA Conference encourages United Methodist Advocacy in Pennsylvania to petition for the enactment of this legislation by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and to produce a report of actions they have taken and the results of their work.
On Sunday, swimming’s world governing body FINA voted in agreement with the resolution of the Pittsburgh area UMC branch. It adopted restrictions that bars the participation of transgender athletes in elite women’s competitions and creates a working group to establish an “open” category for them in some events as part of its new policy.
This news comes at a pivotal time in the United Methodist Church, as the denomination faces an inevitable split over the very issues at the heart of the transgender athletics discussion: gender and sexuality. The next UMC general assembly is scheduled for 2024, where many religious analysts believe the denomination will formally split.
Some believe the UMC will not even last until then, as hundreds of conservative churches have already left in the last few months for the new Global Methodist Movement.