This assumes there are male brains and female brains and they ALWAYS are in a matching body.
There is no reason to assume that.
We have plenty of examples of gay people. People whose sexuality is a “mismatch” from the more common and expected heterosexual (because species reproduction).
No one I know or have heard of chooses their sexuality. How they roll is kind of programmed in. Whether nature or nurture or some combination we are all at the whims of something we have no control over.
So why is it surprising if some people feel they are in the wrong body and identify as something else (gender-wise)? For whatever reason a male/female brain gets mismatched and plopped in the wrong body. With billions of people in the world it is to be expected since there is no mechanism we know of to ensure it works out “perfectly” every time (man brain in man body and so on).
No, there is not and it has been an on-going problem with intersex athletes. It is a related but still different topic. Here is the wiki the matter. Apparently the IOC is going off testosterone levels now.
I think that people don’t want to say this, but this situation, once realized, will be the death knell for a lot of women’s sports. The only ones surviving being sports like volleyball, curling, gymnastics, etc., where the audience can at least see some physical beauty while they compete.
To be fair, the most “work” in equestrian events, car racing and the like is done not by the athletes, but by something else - horses and cars, respectively. It would make sense that this would largely negate the male physical advantages. Having lighter build (=less weight to pull around) might even be an advantage on its own.
Out of all the sports where the outcome is determined by the competitors’ own power, speed, endurance, coordination and other physical skills and where women and men competitions are held in equal settings (thus ruling out e.g. gymnastics with its different events), ski jumping seems to be the sport where women would have the best odds to succeed in a “free for all” competition. Then again, most winter sports, including ski jumping, have other racial and geographical diversity issues and remain a largely European, Canadian and US thing.
I’m fine with that to0. The other way (just accepting trans and other differently-hormonal women as women) doesn’t entail *any *changes to the existing system, however, so is simpler.
Well… I mean, there’s the XX and XY chromosomes. Not saying that it should be the only defining factor, but, you know, there’s that for a perfect divide.
Sort of.. And, curiously, an “imperfect divide” is a good nod towards how some of the difficulties arise.
I’m not saying you couldn’t make that the dividing line. You could say that the female category is reserved for purely xx and anything else must be xy but there would still be arguments at the margins of that. Plus of course you say that it might not necessarily be the only defining factor but once you start adding in more considerations it becomes even more complicated.
Since the whole purpose of “women’s sports” is supposed to be because men on average have greater physical strength, why not replace “women’s sports” and “men’s sports” with “women-only sports” and sports where everyone (male, female, or otherwise) can compete?
Hell, I’d love to see some high-end women athletes compete in Major League Baseball.
That is pretty much the situation now. I don’t think there is anything preventing a woman from playing a “male” sport.
It just never happens because they can’t reach that level (or at least have not shown themselves able to so far). You just aren’t likely to see many (any?) women competing in the top end of baseball, basketball, football etc.
If they can cut it on merit then yes there be no barriers to them playing at the top level
And in your suggestion is the implicit assumption that you are even able to clearly define the “women” part of the “women-only” sport. The difficulty in doing so brings us round full-circle.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Women are barred from playing in professional baseball at any level, even in the Minor Leagues. I believe there were even a few test cases where women who were recruited by a Major League team (or one of its farm teams, perhaps) had their contracts invalidated because they were women.
Then those rules should be changed, though again, I seriously doubt whether a woman would be able to play at the highest level purely on merit they should certainly not be barred from doing so and should be encouraged to try.
The rules don’t need changed because they don’t exist. There have been multiple women in the minors. Eri Yoshida played in the winter league and Melissa Mayeaux was on the international registrant list.
So… what are you saying here? In women’s sports looks are more important than skills? The only reason anyone watches is to ogle female flesh? You discount that anyone might enjoy high-level women’s sports for the same reason they like watching any other sports… or do you also maintain the only reason anyone watches men’s sports is to ogle male flesh? Don’t be coy, tell us what you really think.
Women’s beach volleyball admits the view that its rulesmakers think along these lines. Until recently it was not legal for a participant to wear shorts and a shirt - bikinis (with “a maximum side width of seven centimeters (2.76 inches)”) were effectively required.
Errr… I wrote that late last night and somehow hit submit before finishing my point. I edited it to add a second paragraph that explained but missed the edit window and so I was stuck posting a really misogynistic-sounding paragraph.
My original point is that once you allow trans men into women’s sports the appeal for women to play these sports becomes attenuated by the fact that they can not physically compete with a previous male of even average talent. So I think a side effect of this is that sports that gain attention from having attractive female athletes would fill the void in the demand. Woman may be more inclined to compete in these sports where they can get ahead based on talent and looks instead of talent alone.