I have written about my support for trans people and how I believe that the argument over which bathrooms a person uses is nothing more than a hyped-up argument used by conservative politicians to garner votes and reinforce fear of people different than them.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been in the men’s room at the same time as a trans person, but if I had, I wouldn’t have cared. When you got to go, you got to go.

The trans-bathroom argument is important to some people for some reason, but it makes absolutely no sense to me. Since some find it important, conservative politicians use it as a way to generate votes.

It may surprise some to know that while I support trans-rights, now that enough signatures have been gathered to put it on the ballot, I will be voting on a state constitutional amendment that would limit sports participation in schools to teams that are biologically male, female, or co-ed.

I know that some on the left will see that vote as being anti-trans. Those people would be wrong. My vote will be pro-common sense.

I would vote against any amendment if they were trying to ban trans students from participating in band, theater, debate, cheerleading, the math club, or any other extracurricular activity. But sports are a different matter.

I try to look at each issue individually and not in the one-size-fits-all litmus tests used so often in politics today.

People get so entrenched in their liberal or conservative siloes that they can’t admit when the other side has a good idea. And a good idea should stand on its own merits and not be dismissed just because the other side proposed it.

Obamacare would be a good example of this. The genesis of the Affordable Care Act was originally taken from what Mitt Romney instituted when he was governor of Massachusetts. You don’t find many people more conservative than Mitt Romney. In fact, many people called the Massachusetts law Romneycare.

But when Barack Obama, a Democrat, proposed a similar law, the folks on the right fought it tooth and nail.

Recently I heard Dan Osborn do a radio interview, and they questioned him on his stance on trans girls and sports. Dan doesn’t think they should be able to compete with girls who were born female. The interviewer brought up that some on the left saw that as hate. Osborn said it wasn’t based on hate but on fairness.

And that’s what this proposed constitutional amendment would codify.

It must be hard to run as an independent candidate because you have to admit that both sides might have a good idea from time to time. The way the system is currently set up, nuance is next to impossible. You can’t be pro-Second Amendment but agree there should be some regulations on guns if you’re a Republican. Likewise, if you’re a Democrat, you can’t be for tighter restrictions on abortions.

This state constitutional amendment straddles that line. You can vote for this while still supporting trans-rights. I don’t see that as being contradictory.

If you’re the parent of a trans child who wants to play school sports, you might think putting this in the state constitution is unfair. And I can appreciate why you would feel that way. To that point, I would ask you: when have school sports ever been fair? If sports were fair, I would have not only made the high school baseball team; I would have lettered.

If you think trans students should be allowed to play school sports, do you think the biological females should be allowed to use steroids to be able to compete with them? That’s not too far of a stretch, and that would be wrong too.

What I’m trying to say here is we need to compromise. We need to be able to look at each issue individually and challenge our beliefs from time to time. Life is not always black and white. We need to admit when someone else has a good idea, or at the very least accept the fact that our ideas don’t always win in the court of public opinion.

Life isn’t fair. It would be so much easier if it were. I also know that this issue only affects a very small percentage of people, and in a perfect world, the governing bodies of the sports would determine participation, not the state.

But we don’t live in a perfect world, and since it will be on the ballot, I’ll be voting to make school sports as fair as possible.

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.

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