Is it continuing the hijack if I say I agree? 
Ha! No, I think that’s OK, and I will stop complaining about the hijacks since I’m not a moderator and this isn’t my thread.
This is an important point. Just as we segregate competition categories now by physical characteristics like age and size, ISTM that we can fairly consider other characteristics that affect transgender athletes. I don’t know how that will all shake out in practice, but that’s what lawyers are for.
Another issue to keep in mind is whether we could in fact solve a lot of potential problems just by adjusting nomenclature. If the point of segregating teams by sex is to give cisgender female athletes a separate space taking into account their comparative physical limitations, then you don’t actually have a “boys’ team” and a “girls’ team”: what you have is an open team and a cisgender-female team.
I think transgender female athletes should have the option of playing on the open team without being officially designated “boys” and “males” due to their participation.
How? They’re not being labelled girls; they are still clearly labelled as boys/males/XY. They are not required or encouraged to become girls, be identified as girls, or in any way assume a female identity. So how does a situation where boys are NOT labelled as girls prove that they’re not afraid to be?
They are not being labelled girls.
They are just plain, ordinary, heterosexual (probably), male-identifying boys openly playing on teams that are mainly girls. That’s a totally different issue from transgender sports.
Given how much of an utter failure making “gender-segregated” sports a “‘save space’ for women” has been , perhaps as a society we should stop thinking in terms of “separate but equal” and instead in how to directly address the problem of abuse by authority figures at the root.
With regard to enforcement of Title IX provisions and ‘transgendered’ women, I think it should be noted that the current scientific research in genetics, endocrinology, and neurophysiology indicates that biological sex is far less binary than what you learned in basic science class or even in anatomy & physiology courses.
The article goes on to discuss hormone regulation differences between and within genetically identified XX and XY chromosome individuals and why there are “environmental, social and behavioral factors” (it doesn’t specifically mention nutrition but this is also a hormone regulator) within people of a recognized biological sex. While it is certainly the case that as an aggregate people with an XY chromosome makeup will be physically larger and stronger than someone with an XX chromosome makeup, there is significant overlap in the populations notwithstanding trisomy or hormone deregulation issues, which as much of an edge case as they may be still play into an overall discussion of how to make the system as fair as possible.
At this point, if the intent is to provide a level playing field for athletics, it probably makes sense to start designating classes in terms of measurable physical abilities rather than self-identified gender, chromosomal makeup, or even hormonal metrics, and stop pretending that gender-based distinctions provide some special protection from abuse or unfairness in and of themselves.
Stranger
Will these teams be separate but equal?
Jokes aside, I can’t imagine a trans woman would be happy being forced to play on the open team rather than the female team where she’d undoubtedly feel more comfortable. Also, if trans women do indeed have a reduced muscle mass from hormone treatments, it seems unfair and dangerous to make them play with the men.
I agree. Here’s the opening paragraph of that EO from Jas09’s cite:
In other words, don’t discriminate against people based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. That’s a good principle, and I’m glad to see it made a clear policy of the current administration.
If it turns out that we have to adjust some of the details in order to balance claims of competing rights, well, as I said, that’s what lawyers are for.
Well, being neither a lawyer nor a sports physiologist, I have no idea who might end up being “forced” to play on what team under a system that bars discrimination based on gender identity but also acknowledges the importance of fairly designed competition categories.
What I do know is that a team that is open to all athletes who exceed some minimum size/strength/whatever requirements, irrespective of what gender they identify as or whether they’re cisgender or transgender, should be called an “open team” rather than a “boys’ team”. Even if it turns out that most of the people who play on it are cisgender boys.
There are no boys teams for field hockey.
So, I dont see a problem. And I dont care about the people who do care, they are sexist entitled worrywarts.
However, it proves that some boys are not afraid of being labeled a girl if it allows them to play.
I have yet to any situation where a man has been willing to fake a transition to a woman, living as a woman in day to day life, for any purpose.
I’ve seen the opposite: there were the occasional women who would pretend to be men to get ahead in man’s world. But there were a handful of them, as it’s not remotely easy to do.
I’m against being afraid of things that people have no evidence would even happen. That sort of logic has been used to excuse discrimination for a long time.
On the other hand, the question of whether trans women have an advantage is a valid one. However, it is an open question. We know that testosterone helps, but trans women tend to take testosterone blockers. It’s unclear if having had testosterone in your system is enough, with some arguing that, after 2 years of not having testosterone, performances of trans women level out to the same as cis women, so that’s a pretty useful metric.
As for the EO: I agree that the plain text does not indicate that it forces integration. If @Jimmy_Chitwood wants to make that claim, he needs to bring up other rules or laws that would make it so.
No, it doesn’t. They’re not called girls. They don’t have to live as girls in their private lives. They’re boys who happen to be playing in a sport that was traditionally female-only
That would be like saying Jackie Robinson was willing to be called white to play baseball.
Well I think in the scenario you described with a team that’s explicitly for cisgendered women is discriminatory, and it would “force” a transwoman to play on a team with a bunch of cismen if the “open” team is the only other option.
Also, if the mere act of making a men’s team open to transmen results in it no longer being called a men’s team, is that discriminatory? I would think so. That’s a message to transmen that they’re not real men.
I’m starting to agree with Jimmy_Chitwood’s “plain reading” argument. This EO will make it illegal to discriminate in college sports based on gender identity, meaning schools will have to allow transwomen to play on the women’s team and vice versa. I don’t believe for a second in any of these ridiculous scenarios where cismen would pretend to be trans just to get a competitive advantage, but I also know that trans issues are very complicated and I’m happy to stay far away from any of that decision making.
If you guys can’t see how boys playing on a girls’ teams is similar to XX athletes declaring themselves to be women to compete then you don’t appear to have lived through high school. Go ahead and hammer me for it but that’s the last I’ll comment on it.
Back to the OP, even if the accusation is accurate, so what? The overall benefit of the XO should not be stopped by what is essentially a small edge case. If it turns out to be a problem we can adjust the language, assuming we ever figure out how to solve it.
Throwing it out because of an edge case would be like getting rid of all tax deductions because a few self-proclaimed billionaires pay $750 in Federal income taxes. It’s a poor way to govern.
Um… no. You’re not going to fool anybody or satisfy anybody on either side of the controversy by changing the labels.
The labels are not the problem, and if you think they are, you’re misunderstanding the whole issue.
There’s a big difference between a boy being on a primarily girl’s team, and a boy “pretending” to be a girl to play on a girl’s team.
Maybe it is. As various social institutions start getting to grips with the science about sex and gender, including the fact that they’re not purely binary classifications, we’ll be adjusting some assumptions.
? I think we might be talking at cross-purposes here. The point is that anybody who qualifies can play on the open team: mostly cisgender men, but also some transgender women. And perhaps a small subset of large and powerful cisgender women and transgender men as well.
What gives the team its “open” designation, rather than “men’s”, is the fact that some of the people who qualify to play on it identify as women (or nonbinary). Not the fact that a small fraction of the players who identify as men on the open team might be transgender men rather than cisgender men.
I don’t think that will solve all the problems, by any means. But it certainly makes sense to shift toward more accurate terminology just for its own sake. If AMAB people who identify as boys and AMAB people who identify as girls are both entitled to play on a certain team, then it’s inaccurate to refer to that team as a “boys’ team”.
I think Stranger made a good point too:
First, here’s a cite. I didn’t want to use such inflammatory language in my op:
Second, I’m not talking about boys pretending to be trans to win medals, or some kind of slippery slope. I’m saying it’s unfair to allow transgender people to compete against cis-women because they have various physical advantages, and women’s sport exists to give the group of people without those advantages a chance to compete on a level playing field. It is similar to allowing a heavyweight boxer to compete against middleweights.