What makes that advantage fair? I’m assuming that you’re talking about his genetic advantages, not what he got from dedicating himself to practice.
Are you saying that all advantages are by definition unfair?
An example of an unfair advantage would be performance enhancing drugs. Or being a hundred pounds heavier in a combat sport.
I agree. Fair and equal aren’t the same thing. The goal should be to have a fair competition, not necessarily an equal one. Unless we’re talking about combat sports like boxing or MMA, or a collision sport like football, I would have no problem with someone like Shaq, Michael Phelps, or Tiger Woods competing against those athletes of lesser abilities at the high school level.
I wouldn’t go so far as high school since they’re not fully grown. Against college kids, sure.
EDIT: Unless you meant while they were in high school also, in which case totally agreed.
Fair, in my mind, means deserved. I must be a godless man at heart, to believe the natural excellences of one child, compared to the natural deficiencies of another, are inherently undeserved, and thus unfair.
~Max
That seems bizarre to me. Are you a sports fan?
I agree with the key points in the guidelines listed below. I suppose that opinions vary about whether trans-inclusion or competitive fairness and safety should be prioritized.
For me, competitive fairness and safety should be prioritized. I feel that way because transgirls can competitively play on the boy’s team if they want to. If high-school sports mean that much to them, they can play/participate if they want…it would just have to be on the boy’s team. A cis-girl who loses her spot on the team to a trans-girl is pushed out of high-school sports. So, it seems that the option that allows the largest number of teens who want to play high school sports to actually play high school sports is transgirls play on the boy’s team (hopefully renamed the open team) and cis-girls play on the girl’s team which would be female-only. (And renamed to the female team.)
As is a cis-boy who loses his spot on the open team to a trans-girl. (Did you overlook that?)
~Max
Nothing unfair about a cis boy losing his spot to a trans girl.
The idea that kids just go to the high school down the block is decades out of date. There is definitely jockeying to transfer and build dynasties and superteams. I would expect that a coach willing to recruit trans girls to a private school at the HS level could field an unbeatable team.
I was about to disagree, but then you said private school. Fair point.
The unfair thing is separate. I was just now countering Summerday’s argument that allowing trans-girls to play on boys’ teams is
“the option that allows the largest number of teens who want to play high school sports to actually play high school sports”
~Max
What’s wrong with that?
Transfer rules have been loosened in a lot of places and students definitely enroll in different public schools for sports related reasons.
Nothing is necessarily wrong about a student losing a spot. I’m just saying the total number of teens playing sports is unchanged no matter which team accepts transgender girls; your utilitarian argument rests on a false premise.
~Max
Well, we’re not talking about the total number of teens playing high-school sports, we’re discussing the sex of the people who make up the teams. What’s changed is that instead of 10 cis-girls playing a high-school sport only 9 are…and conversely 11 males are playing that sport instead of 10.
What’s the false premise? (I don’t mean for that to sound snarky.)
As far as the “life isn’t fair” comments go, the trend has been to create more levels, to make things more fair. In my state, for the basketball tournament, there was no separation by school size until the 1970s, and no girls’ teams at all at that time. Now there are five different classifications by school size. Seven for boys’ football. So the trend has definitely been towards making the competitions more fair.
There are definitely trans girls that will dominate if allowed to compete against cis girls. They will be the record setting girls because of the post puberty advantages in muscle mass. I can’t see shrugging our shoulders and doing everything in the face of current trends over this one issue. So trans girls should compete in their own class, or with the boys.
Okay, I see you did overlook it.
You wrote, quote,
Imagine two teams with 10 slots each. 20 slots total. Let’s say 10 boys and 11 girls want to play the sport, and one of the girls is transgender.
- Boys’ Team: 10 slots, 10 boys
- Girls’ Team: 10 slots, 10 girls
- Not playing but wants to play: 1 girl, assigned male at birth
Now let’s pretend the girls’ team accepts transgender girls.
- Boys’ Team: 10 slots, 10 boys
- Girls’ Team: 10 slots, 10 girls (including one assigned male at birth)
- Not playing but wants to play: 1 girl (cis)
Now let’s pretend the boys’ team is renamed to the open team, and the transgender girl qualifies there.
- Open Team: 10 slots, 9 boys, 1 girl assigned male at birth
- Girls’ Team: 10 slots, 10 girls
- Not playing but wants to play: 1 boy
You will notice all of these scenarios have exactly twenty teens who want to play and actually get to play, and one teen who wants to play but can’t.
So when you write,
“So, it seems that the option that allows the largest number of teens who want to play high school sports to actually play high school sports is transgirls play on the boy’s team”
You are wrong.
~Max
I misspoke. I meant that a trans girl can competitively play on the boy’s team or the girl’s team and a cis-girl can typically only competitively play on the girl’s team. So, while it is correct that the total number of teens who play would be unchanged, there wouldn’t be as many cis-girls playing high school sports as there would be if trans-girls played on the open/boy’s team instead of the girl’s team.
I think you are making an unsupported assumption here. It is certainly possible, but by no means do I think it is reasonable to craft policy on the assumption that trans girls will be able to play competitively on a boys’ team. Even if she wanted to, which is unlikely in my opinion.
~Max