Unfairness also exists at several levels. I am a member of the generation in which girls first for the right to play sports. I marched for that right (even though I’m a lousy athlete) because i thought it was unfair. I led the march to my elementary school principal’s office, when i was in sixth grade. Because boys had little league sports, and school sponsored after school sports. And girls had a weekly gym class.
And yes, what we fought for was the right to play. Not the right to win. And some of the first gains were allowing girls to play in existing boy-oriented sports.
I remain convinced that the reason girls’ sports became the default answer (not coed sports) was not to protect the right of girls to win (most players won’t win, after all) but to protect boys from being beaten by girls. Because… Organized sports starts in elementary school. And even in elementary school, the very top players are boys. But in elementary school, a really large fraction of boys will be beaten by the top girls. And we can’t allow that. That’s just too shameful.
Are there sports that need to be segregated by sex? Sure. Heck, they segregate wrestling by weight within the male division. And we might have more interesting basketball if there were “short” division. But why is segregating sports by gender the default, everywhere, even in elementary school? Yeah, i don’t think it’s to protect girls.
Anyway, what i fought for was the right of girls to play sports. And I’d like the right to play to be very broad. Especially for kids.
Should professional sports be allowed to set eligibility rules for leagues? Sure. Honestly, if someone wants to start a mud-wrestling league only for busty women, I’m not going to kick up a fuss. And when there’s a lot of money or prestige on the line, like professional hockey, or Olympic running, the eligibility rules may be complicated and may not give everyone everything they want.
But the fairness i really care about is letting kids do sports. All kids who want to. And reducing the social landmines they might run into. I don’t want to exclude the Black kid because he’s using the wrong water fountain. And i don’t want to exclude the trans girl because she has to say she’s a boy to play.
Firstly it depends on the sport. The relative advantage of, say, a male skeleton is going to be greater in some games than others. And these advantages may go down over time as gender reassignment improves.
Secondly, it’s not like the label of “woman” is all that simple in the first place. Sporting organisations already have to draw some line with testosterone levels, and intersex, or choose to allow all such borderline cases.
So for both reasons I think it’s best to leave it to the specific sports’ organisations to decide.
I am aware that this doesn’t really address the question of the OP – I’m explaining why I don’t think it’s possible to answer as it’s too context dependent. Of course we can set the hypothetical such that the assigned female at birth athletes are at a big disadvantage, in which case the answer would be: it’s hopeless*. But ideally real sports organisations and doctors don’t set the rules / determinations such that we’re in that hypothetical.
(* As an aside, I hate when English is missing a phrase that I use often in another language. The Chinese mei banfa meaning “nothing can be done” would be nice to use here)
I again point to Michael Phelps and his unique biochemistry re the production of lactic acid as well as his enormous lung capacity. Is his participation in men’s sports unfair due to his physical advantages? Should a line be drawn?
Except that they generally aren’t.
Which is why there are sports where the physical differences don’t matter much (e.g. darts, billiards) that remain segregated by gender anyway.
Of course letting Michael Phelps compete in swimming is unfair. But the thing is, nobody cares that it’s unfair. The general expectation is that sports are supposed to be unfair.
Except when it comes to issues of gender and sex, and suddenly everyone cares a great deal about fairness (of that particular sort).
Let me rephrase it to “Sporting organisations generally draw some line with testosterone levels”. I leave it up to doctors and the sporting organisations whether it’s necessary. Just as I consider it their choice whether there is even a separate women’s division in the first place.
I think historically it’s just that fewer women had the means, support and coaching. And it’s chicken and egg – if you never see any women playing at the top level, you never get the broad base of young people practicing every day and seeing it as a career option and getting the best coaching when they do.
Having women’s soccer or basketball gives opportunities and exposure, so hypothetically at a future time maybe we could just switched to mixed leagues or whatever. (I think it is implausible for muscular sports like this though)
I don’t know if that’s the default everywhere. Almost every sport I can think of is gender mixed at the elementary school level. My specific experience is that Ice Hockey, Soccer, Baseball, Wrestling, and Martial Arts are quite commonly gener-mixed before High School.
From a non-political, pure-sports discussion, I’d say at the elite levels, it should be up to the pro sports organization to decide whether and how transwomen can compete – do they need to be on hormone blockers for some length of time, etc., or are the differences so great that, maybe, in that sport, it can’t work. They know their own sport and can figure this out.
At lower levels, high school and below, let them play. For nearly all athletes at that level, none of that really matters, and schools looking to recruit women for college sports can look at who they want. For almost all high school girls, this is just not an issue worth worrying about at all.
There is no top-down, once-size-fits-all solution, so I don’t understand what we think we can solve here. OP, maybe open up a thread for each sport at each level – let’s start with can 12 year old transgirls compete fairly at rec softball?
One thing that muddles these discussions is that the issues of trans athletes in kid sports aren’t the same as in adult sports. Women don’t play sports at the high school level. Girls play at those levels. The issues of trans girls in sports are far less significant than for trans women in sports. Athletic ability is often very similar between boys and girls, especially at the pre-puberty ages. In addition, the athletes at schools are often have a random mish-mash of abilities. The students are a random assortment of kids since they are not self-selecting to be in those schools. For instance, there can be a world-ranked athlete a rural school who’s far better than anyone else in the district because their parents had to move from a metroplex to that rural area for work. The athletic ability of a trans athlete in a school sport is generally not out of bounds with the other athletes in that sport since there is such a wide range of abilities at that level. While it’s useful to discuss the issues of trans athletes in school sports, those issues aren’t necessarily the same as in adult sports. And the issues of trans athletes in adults sports aren’t necessarily relevant to those in kid sports. The simpleness of trans kids in sports can’t necessarily be applied to trans adults in sports.
When we start getting into sports at the adult level, there is a much higher level of ability differentiation. Athletes are focusing on their sport to a much greater degree. They are depending on their ability in their sport for financial support. Issues of fairness begin to be much more important. The fact that sports have hormone requirements for trans women reflects the importance for fairness at the athletic level. If a trans athlete is competing at too strong of a level to their cis gender competitors, that will be seen as unfair. Changes will be made to the requirements, such as more stringent hormone requirements to get the trans athlete’s ability more in line with cis gender athletes. And this desire for fairness isn’t just applied to trans athletes. If some kind of equipment gives too much of an advantage, players using that equipment will probably be banned. If a medication gives too much of an advantage, players taking that medication will probably be banned.
In terms of the OP, the way that cis women will compete against trans women is that the trans women will have requirements placed upon them such that their athletic ability is ensured to be in line with cis women. The cis women will not have to improve their ability to meet the ability of trans women. Rather, the ability of trans women will be reduced so that they are competing at the level of cis women.
I would say that 99.9% of sports at the adult level is various rec leagues, beer leagues, pickup leagues, local clubs, etc.
If you mean the pro level or college D1 level, then surely they know their sport well enough to set their rules, which will vary by sport in their treatment of transwomen.
Isn’t that really the answer to all of this handwringing? The participation of transwomen will vary by level, by sport, and even by woman – someone who transitions before full puberty will be different than someone who transitions post-puberty. Someone taking hormones and blockers may qualify to play, depending on the sport, more than someone who is identifying as another gender and taking no further action. Again, all at the “serious” level of competition.
I would say that it’s the other way around. A stated goal of youth sports is often that everyone should get to be able to play. That’s a statement that youth sports should be fair. But at the pro levels, fairness is impossible. If I (an adult cismale) tried to compete against even a female professional athlete, in almost any sport, I wouldn’t stand a chance, for reasons at least in part beyond my ability to control. That’s completely unfair, and also completely expected.