OT: Transgender athletes and fairness

My suggestion would be for athletic competitive categories to be based on genome. XX, XY, and Other. 

One is free to identify as anything they wish. The genome is what it is. 

I don't know the answer, but I am sure the old mostly white male politicians that seem to be really worked up about this will provide an adequate response.

What is the update on Harbaugh?

There is little interest in a board dominated by men fighting over who can be the biggest beta.

You know what you’re doing

I'm all for equal rights. I'm also all for common sense and common sense says that biologically, men and woman are not created the same. Men typically have some advantages, like strength, that a woman doesn't. Which leads to biological men typically being bigger, stronger, and faster. The playing field isn't even. And it should be ok to say men and women are different.

My girlfriends was a division one softball player at DePaul. She is now an AAU softball coach and has done some scouting for various D1 schools. So this is actually a topic we have discussed a bit. Her fear is this is going to ruin women's sports at the NCAA level if something isn't done. It's not to hard to see individual sports like swimming, track, and tennis all have their records crushed in the coming years. 

Even a sport like basketball. Imagine putting a really talented biologically male all conference basketball player on a women's team. They could go for 45pts and 20 boards a night and if the rest of the team is serviceable, that team would become heavy favorites to dominate and make a run to the championship.

If one wants to transition for male to female, more power to them. Best of luck and I hope they live a life that makes them happier. To go through that transition, sacrifices are made. One of those sacrifices should be sports at the high school and NCAA level. 

Those are my feelings but I'm open to a thoughtful discussion.  

It's such a difficult subject. I want to be inclusive, but i can't see how this is fair to other women athletes.

I expect this topic to generate as much informed and measured debate as the public comment period at my local school board meeting did last night as they prepared to discuss their mask mandate.  

Good luck with this one

I have a lot of thoughts on this, however I am not at all confident that the board is capable of having this discussion.  I think this is a worthy topic of debate.  It probably won't end well here though.

Would it make a difference if she isn't vaccinated for COVID-19?

I think this is a challenging question that neither "side" is willing to have non-emotionally. I've thought about this for some time, and the answer doesn't seem to readily present itself. Which means, its a difficult conversation or argument to have - one with merit. One that we on this board, and in this country, and in this time, are completely unable to have.

I think we should cut the bike in half!

StephenRKass.  I see from your profile that you've been a member for 13 years and have over 20k points.  You really think this is an appropriate post for MgoBlog?

What if old washed up LeBron begins to "identify " as a woman and moves on to the WNBA how fair is that.If you truly support women's rights you cannot support trans athletes not competing in their birth gender.

People keep saying "Oh, this won't end well." So far though, it seems like most people are engaging with this in good faith. I'm proud of you all.

I believe there will likely be a fundamental re-examination of sporting divisions, primarily with sex/gender being replaced by something akin to weight class (or some other physical metrics).  This need was obvious long before the transgender issue further clouded the subject: we had seen for decades instances of women/girls wanting to compete in the men/boys divisions of their respective sports (and some of the converse), with varying degrees of success.

I'll attempt to add something to the conversation.

Biology is real.  Men have certain athletic advantages.  It is not fair for a biological male to be competing with a biological female in athletics.

When we reach the point where transitioning actually bridges the biological divide, then competition will be more fair.

For now, the idea that you get to compete with whichever gender you identify diminishes women's rights and discourages biological females from honest competition.  It may even encourage biological females to use performance enhancing drugs in an effort to compete.

I'll go a step further.  Does this diminish the rights of the transgender athlete?  I'm not sure it does.  Competing on an unfair playing field is not really competing.  I don't get excited when I beat my six-year-old at checkers.  

Until we determine how to fix the biological challenges, perhaps the solution is to scrap gender in "male" athletics.  Let anyone compete at the "male" level and restrict "female" competition to biological females.  So no more "men's" basketball, just "basketball" and "women's basketball."  It feels clunky, but I don't see a better temporary fix.

EDIT: The only other alternative I can think of is to have "men," "women," and "other" in sports.  That feels tough, too.

One idea I've heard (though only once, which means it was likely reasonable but TOTALLY UNACCPTABLE TO THE ALL CAPS CROWD) is to have binary and non-binary gender sports and teams. We are already at the point where a binary woman can try out and - in some cases - get a spot on a football team. That would also probably work for team sports like soccer and, perhaps, hockey and field hockey. In those cases, the binary vs non-binary debate may not be as compelling.

In a sport that requires individual performance and in which an athlete clearly benefits from biological advantages associated with a X or Y chromosome, then fielding both binary (men's, women's) and non-binary teams may be preferable. Swimming is one example, but there are obviously others, such as gymnastics.

I don't have every answer. I think it's fair for the olympics and the highest level of competition to have different rules than local high school districts. I'm open to changing my view on this, but everything lower than college is about teaching kids the value of teamwork and being apart of something bigger than themselves, and it's outrageous to bar trans kids from things like that when they already often have uphill battles and deal with stigmas that often isolate them and cut them off from community and team work. 

If a trans kid ends up being awesome on the HS softball team or local wrestling team, I don't think that's the earth shattering unfair thing people make it out to be.

My take is that we talk about recognizing the rights of one class of citizen, which I’m totally for, but in this case it impacts a larger number of citizens unfairly. I don’t know a solution that will appease everybody, so in these cases I would choose the one that minimizes negative consequences. In my opinion (just mine), I’d optimize for fairness for the athletes born female. I would acknowledge that this sucks for trans athletes, acknowledge their right to self identify, and try to find a solution that allows them to participate but without direct competition. That will likely leave a group screaming bloody murder, but I think it is the right path. 

Respectfully, OP, I believe this topic is better suited to a forum that can accept nuance, objectivity, and fairness.

Take it to Twitter.

Hey Kass, nice job on the post and presenting this in a non-inflammatory way.  Half the comments are people predicting the implosion of this thread and the other half seem to be some reasoned responses.  Maybe don't come here just to say a thread is going to get nuked and offer something worthwhile?

I never thought about it much until my home state made a ban on trans-athletes competing in their new gender's group.  I was a little upset at first, but also realized it wouldn't have been fair for my sister to compete against me in track, and that is kind of what can happen.  The other comment on here about the steroid use is another thing I've never thought of.  This is so layered and complicated I really don't think there's a current solution anyone will find that can be equitable, at least not any time soon.  Almost feels like one group is going to get screwed and that's how it will be and my guess is it will be trans-athletes.  Really unfortunate situation for times we never predicted.

So many comments to the tune of “this won’t end well” or “why did you post this?” yet all discussion so far has been thoughtful and respectful. In my opinion this is a topic that needs to be discussed. 
 

I’m a male who works full-time in sports as a coach and DOC.  I’ve coached at the college, high school and youth levels, and in recent years I’ve worked almost exclusively with female athletes. I have only had one trans athlete so far, but the case was extremely difficult to navigate. The athlete was a high school student who was in the process of transitioning from female to male. However, he chose to try out for the women’s team while still asking to be referred to with male pronouns, a male first name and presenting as male. As you can imagine, that created a lot of confusion as to how to handle the situation as the MHSAA’s stance is basically “do what you want.” I simply followed the guidance of the school counselor and AD. 
 

I will add that many of my players’ parents on the youth side of things seem VERY concerned about this issue despite never actually encountering a trans opponent player (that I know of). It seems like it’s in our nature to want to have policies in place to handle all contingencies, present or future. My personal opinion is that each case should be handled on a case-by-case basis, but as a society we really don’t like that. We want clear rules that we can all either agree or disagree with (and cite when we feel like someone else has broken them). Applying hard and fast rules to a very nuanced issue is probably going to lead to a lot of pissed off people in the future.

One final note - I do think it’s lame that raising any questions around fairness in this particular conversation can immediately earn you the “transphobic” label in some circles. Hard to make progress without conversation.  

I have not read all the comments.  As a physician my science brain wonders if there is a series of hormonal tests that could determine where the person should compete.  Maybe a physician/scientist panel that reviews the tests and makes a ruling.  I imagine males transitioning to females take medications to suppress some and enhance other hormones, so at some point maybe they transition from male to female sports as well.  Same goes for females transitioning to males, hormones one season may qualify for female sports and the next could push him into male sports.  Just a thought without knowing enough of the hormonal changes these people endure.

Forthcoming topics I'll take the lead on creating:

1. The hipocrisy of monothesistic religions and how atheism is the answer

2. Pedophilia is a real sexuality and should be protected

3. Why Donald Trump deserves to be sainted and knighted

4. So lucky: how women have it so easy in the US

5. The bigger hoax: climate change or vaccine efficacy?

6. Change my mind: AOC is a hot piece of ass and I love the way her boobs bounce when she types. 

Lia Thomas is a woman therefore her rights are women's rights. There is no conflict.