Ok, do you have a child?
Transgender Athletes
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Ok, do you have a child?
Silence….
That exclusion is going to have to happen at some point because (in a large number of, if not most sports) biological males cannot compete on a level playing field with biological females.
We can have a separate debate about the ideological framework behind youth sports and whether inclusion should always trump fairness of competition, but as I said, that's a separate debate.
Ultimately, in competitive sports, I will always value fairness of competition over inclusion. In answer to your question, I don't believe excluding a child based on ability (or lack thereof) is the same as excluding them "because of who they are", but based on the more specific meaning of "who they are" in this instance, it being the same isn't relevant.
Anecdotally again, and I don't know if it's changed (or if it was indeed different in other areas), but when I was playing football as a kid, the cut off was U13s, which in our league was the second season of 11-a-side, after which girls were no longer allowed to compete with the boys for safety reasons.
There was a girl in our league who was a supremely talented footballer and did earn a fair number of international caps up to around U19s, and earned a full scholarship to a US university based on our ability. In U11s, the final season of "small" sided football, she stood out as a star player. In U12s she was able to hold her own for the most part, but I wouldn't say she shone in the same way, and by U13s she was just another player. I don't agree with her exclusion because I believe in her instance she'd have still been competitive in U14s, even if she'd had to move to her club's "B" side. However, she went to one of the few academy sides for U14s and found herself to once again be a star player. The flip side of this is if you'd dropped almost any of the boys into the same U14s side, they'd have probably also shone as a star player. This is essentially the crux of the issue and you don't seem to be acknowledging this.
Additionally, as you've since asked someone else for links to support their post(s), I'd like to repeat my request for the studies you referred to earlier.
Have to say much better put than my Cider induced ramble. I think safety is key in the sport debate, my younger boy, about 3 years younger than his older very slim sister, is a bruiser and through no fault of his own puts his sister on her arse. Then laughs after it.
That’s the situation in our local underage league as of this season. There’s been a huge growth in girls teams over the last few years so girls don’t have to play with boys the way they might have had to do in the past. But eventually there comes a point where the physical disadvantage is just too much.
On a side note, a lot of girls coaches encourage the best girls to play with boys as long as possible and not switch to a girls team too early. They think playing with/against boys is great for their development.
That's my experience coaching too. Lost a very talented girl one season because she wanted to try the girls team, but she was back I think two seasons later because she thought it was too easy. She was gone again by the winter though because she got snatched up by an academy and they didn't want her risking injury.
The path to top level football (well, college scholarships anyway) does seem to be a bit easier for girls. Presumably because of the much smaller talent pool. So you can understand why they’d be protective about allowing players who are born male to compete.
Yeah once kids are more developed and mature they would understand the needs of professional sports.
They don't need to be developed or mature to understand puberty blockers though, that's fine at 9 years old..
You're right, kids shouldn't go to doctors at all, since they don't understand the intricacies of medicine. What a great argument, touche.
Yeah I agreed in this thread that eventually there might be a need for that exclusion if we reach a more professionalized environment. It has to be debated, probably sport by sport, but that's a different topic. My point is that point shouldn't be kids in school, that's all. All the bills being passed in the US are banning little kids, it's ridiculous.
If by competitive sports you mean college sports or professional sports I agree, fairness is more important. But in a country like america, where you have 300.000 kids aged 13-17 who are transgender, a general ban is unacceptable in my view, even if we have to relegate fairness to second place.
If she won so consistently why was she ranked only #44 in the 2021/22 season for example? Did she not participate in other events and so didn’t score enough points? Genuine question.
https://www.swimcloud.com/country/usa/swimmers/?rank=5826386&gender=F&season_id=25&page=2
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American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Medical Association
American Psychiatric Association
American Psychological Association
Endocrine Society
Pediatric Endocrine Society
WPATH Standards of Care
World Health Organisation
as for your clarifying remark, what’s your point, that trans women aren’t cis women? Who is arguing that?
It also isn't as simple as adjusting hormone levels if someone has gone through puberty as a male. I also think medicating people in this way as a condition for participating in sport is somewhat ethically dubious as well.
And you think that gender assignment surgery happens to 10 or 11 year olds? Kids usually not old enough even to need puberty delaying medication? Straw man much?
Yes, that’s a result of not competing in every event & every meet.
We have a similar system in wrestling for individual wrestlers contributing points to the team during individual tournaments.
I have a trans nephew and a son who plays elite sport. Anecdodal thoughts are that a) my nephew was a miserable girl growing up and is now a very happy person and an even earlier start to addressing the issue would have saved him a great deal misery in his teenage years, b) my son is a very good player who plays 1st division pro water polo in Europe and plays for his national team, but he is not a superstar of the game. If he transitioned the physical advantage he got after developing as a male would make him easily the best female player in the world by some margin, no matter what his testosterone levels were adjusted to.
Take those snippets as you will.
Take those snippets as you will.
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Once the hard right have got bored with using these issues as a tool to wind people up then sensible heads will prevail and we will reach an equilibrium. The graph of left handedness in the US comes to mind, its worth googling.
Once again a decent sensible post. It does seem from this thread that there is a massive lack of empathy and understanding about a group of children/teens for whom life is already extremely difficult and confusing.
Everyday, in one way or another, it is pointed out to them that they are different, too young to understand themselves and don't fit in with society's norms. The sporting argument (for which I don't have an answer) is often used as just another opportunity to emphasise this.
It seems that unless you know a young person going through this, then it is too difficult to try to understand the pain and the vulnerability they feel. The world can be a very cruel place and language and empathy become extremely important.
The pile in on @maniak in this thread, mostly, ignores both those and feels particularly harsh, and though I don't necessarily agree with all he has written, the base of his argument is inclusion which seems to me to be an excellent place to start.
Seeing someone's difficulties used so openly in culture wars on both sides of the Atlantic has a huge impact on both physical and mental wellbeing. The left handedness graph is a brilliant analogy and one I have used with family and friends to explain why gender dysphoria may appear to be more common today than it was when they were kids.
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Amazing that nobody has thought of that before. Probably because we are thick or a WUM.
What about the thousands of girls who aspire to be an athlete only to have their hope squashed by the new girl in town who everyone know can't be beaten no matter how hard you try and have to forget about sports.
Or other teams that got obliterated in team sports because they have this big trans athlete that dominated them like there's no tomorrow
It's not a simple equation.
Thanks for this, I don't think I implied it was a "simple equation" In fact I was pretty clear that I don't have an answer.
Then I'd suggest you've not really been engaging in the actual discussion, but the separate debate I alluded to about the core principles of youth sport.
You're essentially arguing that all youth sport should be non-competitive. It's fine to have that stance, it's just not one I agree with.
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I think this is a good post and kind of sums up my thoughts on the topic. It is very difficult because in the current state of society and our understanding and capabilities when it comes to gender reassignment, there is always going to be a group missing out in one way or another, whether that is cis women or trans women. It's also hard like you said in other posts that it's difficult to know what is the right call.
I do wonder if it's possible for trans women to compete in events for cis women but their times/records are set for an 'open' category so you have that inclusion to an extent but then that comes with its own issues. As others have noted, their currently isn't enough competitive talent at the top level for trans women to compete at the sort of level of Lia Thomas (as an example) in an open category but you also don't want to take away from one group.
I think when it comes to scholarships it's tricky too because if people rely on sports scholarships to be able to study it shows how poorly set up education systems are and the unfairness of them anyway, it shouldn't be the case. Understandably though you have a flipside where this is embedded into cultures like the US and the achievement of getting one is something that can be one of the best moments of an athletes life and perhaps an idea to set up scholarships which are available for trans athletes would be a sensible route to take right now.
I can see the arguments for both sides and i try to be as much of an ally as I can to the LGBTQIA+ community but I also think that where society currently is, baby steps so to speak need to be taken in order to have a society on the same wavelength because I really do think that despite the western world taking big steps in regards to race, gender identities, homosexuality etc. we are still just teetering on that edge of 'tolerance' so to speak. I feel for both cis women and trans women and hope that a solution can be found that affords empathy on both sides and leads to a better society.
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Teetering is a good word for it, given we seem to be moving forward in some places and lurching backwards in others.
With sports it seems impossible to get away from the fact you're either excluding an already marginalised minority or potentially disadvantaging all cis women athletes. It's hard to see how someone doesn't lose out.
Good post.
I was also wondering about the solution you suggest. Kids being allowed to participate in their gender of choice but awards etc only going out to contestants of the same biological sex. A sort of non-competitive inclusiveness. It wouldn’t fix the issue in team sports though.
Hold one, this is Schroedinger's trans kids, they are both a rare minority, yet there are simultaneously millions of them?
As far as pro sports go, I think it’s relatively simple. For most sports, a ban is the only option for trans women who have gone through male puberty given the potential advantages. That’s unfortunate but 99% of the world’s population aren’t able to be pro athletes because of the body they were born in. No different here. Live a good life doing something where you aren’t getting a competitive advantage.
In terms of amateur sport, subject to safety concerns, I don’t think anyone has a particular issue with inclusion. Might be a bit annoying for competitors at club level if someone started smoking it 300 yards at golf off the ladies tees but seems the fairest solution.
For the quasi pro sports, like the junior athletics in this case, I’d go for a joint winner approach as a slightly uneasy balance. That should avoid any harm being particularly caused to the “loser” but still enable participation.
Never felt that graph made sense because left handedness is innate and has always been around 10% the only reduction was when writing and education was introduced at the turn of the century. Those people were still left handed and if it was a similar situation, you'd have a steady increase in numbers every year, yet we don't have increases in left handedness across society.
I think this is where difficulty arises and empathy is lost when you post things like 'live a good life doing something else'. For some people athletics is what a good life is to them so to suggest they drop that and do something else can come across as opposition to finding a way for inclusion and opposition to acceptance. Banning isn't the right way. There are various options, none of which are perfect currently, but I don't think banning is the correct method because it is something which creates greater divide and quite rightly can be seen as non-acceptance if you're not creating an alternative.
You are right and that's why the male competitions shouldn't be male sports but an open category. Banning is not the right way and it's not even close to be the most obvious way.
If you have a child you know what they feel…
Sure. That’s why no parents are surprised by their kids coming out
You’ve dragged down the level of this thread something fierce.
Might be one of those old wives tales but apparently the NBA is an open category, it's not a male league, it's open to anyone.
Yeah, no NBA rules prevents it. Also if I'm not mistaken FIFA doesn't prevent females from playing with males. But my experience is that at the MHSC academy girls weren't allowed to play with academy boys outside of the academy's grounds.
I think for track and field that option of inclusion in the event but with the possibility of a parallel medal set/placing is worth exploring - I talked about it earlier in the thread. I'm mindful though that it ignores questions of privacy and it's an imperfect solution in terms of the words that would be used to describe the runner who wins the women's race but gets some special category of award.
It's a much harder principle to apply when you move to sports like tennis or to team games.
It's not just a complex question for US juniors with the scholarship system though. It's also a complex question in sports where junior players get picked out for special training very young. High potential young gymnasts, tennis players, footballers and the like are competing for places in training camps very early.
It's a much harder principle to apply when you move to sports like tennis or to team games.
It's not just a complex question for US juniors with the scholarship system though. It's also a complex question in sports where junior players get picked out for special training very young. High potential young gymnasts, tennis players, footballers and the like are competing for places in training camps very early.
If you have a child you know what they feel…
Sure. That’s why no parents are surprised by their kids coming out
You’ve dragged down the level of this thread something fierce.
That’s such an Irish phrase! Is it a direct translation of something you would regularly say in Noggie land?
Does this not just circle back to the point Doracle made about how lots of people already can't compete though?
For example, there are lots of teenagers every year cut from professional football club academies who likely saw their lives as being that of a pro-footballer, but for many, they'll have to accept that it's not a life they will live.
I know the circumstances of their exclusion are different, but the fact is that no individual has a right to a career as an athlete, regardless of how much they may want it.
I think the current proposals surrounding open categories are about as fair a compromise as we're going to reach until the numbers are sufficient to create specific categories to cater for gender identities. That is the alternative being created and I'm not sure why it's being so roundly ignored as if it isn't a solution.
I didn't know that it was irish. It's one of my favorites.
I don't think that's a good example because we know that some professional footballers can be cut from academies, drop a level and then rise back up to become a professional at the top of the game. They aren't banned, they still have opportunity.
Of course you don't have a 'right' to a career, but I think you should have a right to opportunity.
From what I've read and I am aware of, Swim England have announced an open category which will begin in September, that's a good start in terms of alternatives and solutions.
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Nah, I’ve just come across that phrase a bunch of times. My English vocab is better than my Norwegian, not even kidding.
Even track and field isn't as simple as adding an extra competitor. You can't just magic an extra lane for inclusion's sake so there will always be finite space available for competitors. Same goes for swimming.
It's perhaps different for sports like high jump or javelin, for example, but even then I'd imagine there are time constraints.
If the aim is to not have anyone miss out, then this isn't a solution either because you can't just create time and space out of thin air to accommodate extra participants.
As you and others have pointed out, it's also not really feasible once you get to head-to-head and team sports. At best it's a very limited solution, and even then I'm not sure how practical it is given the stated aims.