A year ago Tuesday, Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others died in a helicopter accident. Yes, just a year, and that was just the first of many kicks we absorbed in 2020.
The Bryants were headed to a girls' basketball tournament, and in the days and weeks of tributes to the former NBA great, we learned how big a role he played in female sports, especially with his daughter, Gianna, who was a rising star.
The hashtag #GirlDad quickly became a trending social media topic.
I wonder what Kobe - and his daughter - would have to say about Joe Biden signing an executive order that read in part: "Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love. Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports."
Big picture, of course, we want all young people to be treated with "respect and dignity."
Bigger picture, there is little debate that school-aged children wrestling with gender identity need a lot of support. On this we can all agree.
But Biden's inclusion of "the locker room, or school sports" has a lot of us #GirlDads wondering about transgender athletes in girls' sports. This has cropped up in Texas wrestling and Connecticut track and a slew of other states. Lawsuits were filed and legislation from Tennessee to Hawaii has been crafted on the issue.
Simply put - among comparative levels of athletics and athletes on those levels, there is no comparison between males and females. This is not discriminatory, and it's really not debatable. So would it be fair for a boy who believes he's a female to take my daughter's spot on the team or be the reason my daughter's team got bounced in the region playoffs?
Biden is contending that Title IX - the groundbreaking legislation that has forged a half-century of opportunities for female athletes in schools and universities that get federal funding - should protect transgender female athletes, too.
The basis of Title IX was opportunities for females in sports. So now it appears Title IX could cost females in sports because boys who identify as females want to play girls' sports. Is that fair for all?
I'll end this one here. One of the ways that the left has become appealing to some people in the middle is the far right's indifference to certain science that does not align with its views and priorities, such as with climate change and the environment.
So I'll ask: Isn't physiology a science, too? When we are talking about athletic competition between sexes, blurring the lines between male and female on the court or track or in the field or pool, is more about advantage than inclusion.
And in sports - where there are limited spots on the team, limited spots in the starting lineup and finite winners and losers - inclusion for an extra group means undeniable exclusion for someone else.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.
Jay Greeson