Testosterone is not a “male” hormone. It is present in male and female and non-binary persons.
Agreed. However, since testosterone in present in male persons (and male-bodied non-binary persons) at much higher quantities than in female persons, I’d like to suggest that, for the purposes of this conversation, we agree to refer to testosterone as a ‘male’ hormone.
If that’s not acceptable, I’m happy to use any term you’d prefer. That said, whatever we settle on mustn’t obscure the fact that male persons produce far more testosterone (on average) than females, and that this translates into enhanced athletic performance in the vast majority (but not all) sports.
Indeed. 
Let’s call testosterone a Goply hormone. Or just a hormone.
Maybe the best solution is to get rid the sex categories.
How many people would be at all interested in playing such a sport let alone watching it? One of the nice things about basketball is that it’s an incredibly inexpensive sport to play. All you need is a goal, a little plot of land, and the ball and you’re in business. You could live in a small podunk little town in Georgia and still be able to play basketball. You want to know who has the advantage if we move basketball to the cold open water? Wealthy people. The majority of people, cis gender, transgender, boy, girl, or non-binary would be excluded from such a sport.
If there are no girls or boys, just students, there is nothing to get upset about.
Unless you’re female, or do they not count?
Come on, Hugh. You know full well that the overwhelming number of humans on this earth are born pretty clearly male or female, and you know that if there’s no sex distinction in sports the females are blown out of competitive sports after puberty hits. THEY will think it’s unfair.
In fact, you know what’d happen? Realizing they have zero chance at competing in the sports leagues you think are super fine even though all the females are unable to seriously compete, they’ll set up their own sports leagues. Are you going to force them to stop?
Only a tiny minority get to be competitive athletes. We exclude so many groups of people by selecting the best to compete. Why create a special catagory at schools for just one group?
Maybe we change how we judge sports in schools. Open competition to all comers with a random selection to compete and judge athletes based on effort, not results that are largely based on genetic luck.
Like judging ice skating, we can have an objective and subjective component to the judging.
This way, the next LeBron James can compete directly against a 4’8" paraplegic girl and it will all balance out.
School sports open to everyone on equal footing regardless of genetics.
Win-win.
It’s nice to work through this.
I really think this is a great solution.
Have all students compete equally regardless of physical gifts.
Who could be against this?
Everybody who understands both why Title IX applies to sports and that only a finite amount of both spots and resources are available. Seriously, do you know why American women routinely smoke international competition? It’s not just that we’re a rich country with the will and the money to support years of specialized training, though that helps. It’s because for nearly fifty years now K-12 schools and colleges/universities have had to give equal support to girls’ and women’s sports. It’s not always done well, there are some legitimate criticisms on the effects on men’s sports when it’s defined as X number of scholarships each, and frankly despite the talk there are definitely cases where women still aren’t treated equally.
There’s nothing wrong with the idea of everyone who wants to play should be able to play. But for most people, that’s things like intramurals. Casual play for fun and exercise. Any roster of competitive spots in an “open” system is going to be all men simply because they are bigger, stronger, and faster.
You had me going there. I honestly thought you were serious but it looks like you’re just messing with us. Congratulations, you had me hook, line, and sinker.
Nobody tell him about the Paralympics.
No, I’m serious. Especially for school sports. It’s about learning
Part of learning when it comes to anything competitive is to be matched with or against similar competition. Your proposal has zero value based just on that concept alone. There should be, and there is, support for said short paraplegic girl to be able to play a sport to the best of her ability, though it may not be there in any given school. Frankly, your “no accomodations for anything” thinking would normally have already been torn apart on this board and I’m a little surprised it hasn’t been yet.
People will encounter a wide range of competition.
Maybe I’m changing minds. We’ll see.
To add on. Most people find it helpful to compete against people who are “better” than them, especially if they are much better. It forces them to really try just to keep up. It is usually the “better” competitor who is hurt because they can win without much effort. Notice how I fixed that. They are judged on effort.
A “track star” may be able to cross the finish line first by jogging, but he’ll still lose if the other person runs as hard as they can.
“At the outer edges of endurance sports, something interesting is happening: women are beating men”
Cite: The Donner Party
X-ray of the pelvis? Drop the classification “male” and “female” altogether and just go by bone structure?
P.S., are there actual medical terms, Latin perhaps, for “prototypically male pelvis” and “prototypically female pelvis”? Medicine has formal terms for just about everything but I couldn’t find a cite for this.