In these circumstances it is impossible to balance them all. Males have a massive athletic advantage over females to the point where we know it is unfair for them to compete on an even playing field.
How can you guarantee the inclusion of males in a female competition whilst maintaining the fairness of the competition?
Both surely? whilst realising that
a) There isn’t a correct answer
b) There’s no win-win
c) Whatever you do people will disagree both generally and, potentially, legally.
Your first paragraph is irrelevant. No one is arguing that the giant category called “males” be allowed to play in girls’ and women’s sports.
A trans woman who has undergone no treatment at all is a male are they not?
Oof. Bad word choice here, with “anyone.” I really meant, “Can we figure out if keeping children’s sport championships for any child is worth doing?” We’re talking in the context of children’s sports, and I did not intend to expand the discussion to all sports. I have much less issue with career sports. My bad.
Very interesting. I don’t care about sports, but I do care about kids. Would it make sense for me to say, “in my opinion, people who don’t have kids don’t have valid opinions on this subject”?
I don’t think so. We each approach this with our priorities, and people who don’t have kids may nevertheless have valid opinions.
It does, however, seem to me that if folks are looking at this through the perspective of what leads to better spectator sports–what’s best for “sports fans”–that’s a deeply harmful perspective with which to engage with children’s sports. We need to prioritize the welfare of the kids, not the pleasure of the audience.
Depends on definition, usage, circumstances, and probably more. Did you know that some biological males (by some definitions) can be born with a vagina?
Honestly, the same theme would apply even if it’s just youth sports being impacted. I’m not saying it’s right, but people are very invested in youth sports. I think youth sports would be much better for all involved if we took it down a few notches and made it more about fun and sportsmanship than winning the trophy. However the sports junkies would fight it tooth and nail, and I wouldn’t put trans athletes in the crosshairs.
Tactically you may be right. Fortunately I ain’t in charge of tactics; I’m just shooting the shit about the ethics.
This would be so much less of an issue if folks weren’t so unhealthily obsessed with competitive children’s sports. Remove that, and we’re pretty good to go with letting folks play in the way that leads to fun and exercise and socializing. It solves a lot of problems–including (to some degree) the problem of folks wanting to exclude trans girls from games.
Ultimately, when folks talk about cis girls not having access to championships at the children’s level, I think the problem isn’t trans girls, it’s championships at the children’s level.
Is there such a thing as biological sex? is it a valid category? Because if not then the whole conversation is meaningless seeing at it hinges on the phenotypical characteristics of a sexually dimorphic species.
Just my opinion, I’d be uncomfortable with a quota system.
I don’t think all trans girls would break girls sports. For all I know, most would not and any number of them on any number of girls’ teams and/or individual sports would be totally fine.
There are plenty of high school guys who would be thoroughly outclassed by the high school girls who already play sports. If any of those guys were trans, and let’s say a bunch of their friends were on the girls’ volleyball team, I see no reason they shouldn’t be allowed to join.
But there are also plenty of high school guys who had already been playing sports for years before high school. If any of them were trans, it might be disruptive to put them on the girls teams. (Disruptive as in unfair to the cis girls, potentially leading to cis girls quitting the sport.)
My concern is that most of the trans athletes fall into the second category instead of the first. I suspect trans teens who want to play sports don’t suddenly start playing sports in high school, but rather they want to keep playing the same sports they have been playing, just switching to the girls’ team.
I graduated high school in 89. During the '80s, my high school football team won multiple state championships. The athletes in the school pretty much all played football in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. (They probably won lacrosse championships too but I didn’t pay any attention to that.)
That core group of a couple dozen athletes (let’s call them jocks) in the school had been playing organized school sports for years before high school. During high school they all got very large because steroid use was rampant. (Thus the multiple state championships, though in fairness the other school teams did the same thing. It was the '80s.)
When I think of trans athletes and sports, I think of those jocks switching to the girls teams. They would have owned the girls teams – including soccer – despite the fact that Kristine Lilly went to my high school and led our girls soccer team to great success. (She went on to join and be one of the key parts of the women’s national team that famously won in the late '90s/early 2000s. I forget the specific years.)
Not in the same context, no. The same context would be people who are hostile to children and want them to suffer don’t have a valid opinion.
If you’re hostile to sports in general, no, I don’t think you have a valid opinion regarding how to change sports. (Again, you in general, not you Daniel.)
EDIT: Also the obvious: Not everyone played or watched sports, but everyone was a kid.
It depends. Depends on the circumstances, usage, definition, context, and more.
Is it a valid concept when discussing sport?
IMHO it depends on the nature of the advantage / disadvantage. Some are fair, and some aren’t. Age is an obvious example. None of us would (I hope) consider it fair for a college team of whatever sport to play against elementary school children. Innate talent, however, is a different story. IMHO it’s the whole point of competitive sports. If we say that only individuals of equal abilities should compete against each other, then every contest would essentially be decided by random chance.
How does this apply to trans girls who want to compete on the female team? That’s a very difficult question, as demonstrated by this thread. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I think a case could be made for at least having a trial of allowing trans girls to compete on the female team, seeing how things go, and if it’s obvious that cis girls are being unfairly disadvantaged, then we can reverse course.
It depends.
It seems really bizarre to me that some people think innate talent is somehow unfair in sports. When I read opinions like that, I dismiss them out of hand as not really understanding what sports are in the first place.
Some examples:
For many high school athletes, the competition is the part that’s fun. If it’s just “socializing, fun, and exercise,” they probably wouldn’t even bother. They’d more likely look for one of those non-school travel teams to join.
On the one hand you seem to be saying that focusing on winning is bad, but then you include “competing” as one of the good aspects of sports. Those are both the same thing. Without wins and losses, it’s not sports, it’s gym class.
I just don’t know how you get off the starting block to discuss this meaningfully if you cannot even accept that there is such a biological concept as “male” and “female”.
Do you have a definition of biological sex that you find useful and might be used for this discussion?
There are many such concepts and definitions. Which ones are you referring to? Some might be relevant or useful in this discussion, but others wouldn’t be.
Seems pretty reasonable to me. Let trans girls in as the default position, reserving the right on a case-by-case basis to make exceptions if the cis girls end up getting left behind.
I think it would be better for you to define what you consider “male” and “female” to mean and we can use those.