"My Stolen NCAA Championship" - Female Athlete Who Lost Women's National Title to Male Tells Her Side of Story

I agree, except that no one is discriminating against or banning trans athletes. They are free to compete - like everyone else - in the category of their biological birth sex. It is ridiculous when someone says "they just want to play." No one is stopping them from playing. The objection, as you point out, is that they want a special privilege of advantage that no one else has.

So you are a national champ D1? There were 3 out of 20 60m runners from D3 at USATF indoor champs. Don't put others down. The only person that should trash talk is a world record holder and if you aren't them STFU.

I think she has every right to complain and try to get this changed. Has anyone taken a biology, physiology, or kinesiology course? There are over 25+ differences/characteristics between male/female. I find it ignorant that an association that deals with university/college sports don't recognize these, while the institutions continue to instruct the differences. Even our military recognizes the physical differences, as there physical fitness test reveals scoring table differences that take into account the differences. It was crazy to begin with.

She also wouldn’t be saying anything like that if she was being beaten by someone trans.

Why wouldn’t they?

Just because you and others who believe in the primacy of gender identity over sex think males who've adopted a trans a gender identity don't belong in boys' and men's sports - and they shouldn't be using loos and locker rooms appropriate for their sex along with other blokes, either - it doesn’t mean everyone else feels that way.

In fact, if the experience of elite men’s soccer player Jonny Saelua is any indication, you might well be in the minority in believing that boys' and men's sports and spaces are no place for blokes who've adoped a trans, non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer or other special gender identity different to their sex.

Saelua, born in 1988, is a popular international footballer who played center-back on the American Samoa men’s national soccer team for nearly 20 years, and now plays on a leading men’s teams in the top division of American Samoa’s senior league. He’s worked as a coach for American Samoan national boys’ team too.

Saelua is also a fa’afafine, a “feminine” male who “feels he is a woman” and lives “in the way of a woman.”

On top of that, Saelua is openly gay.

Saelua first began playing boys’ soccer competitively as an 11-year-old in 1999. Three years later he was drafted to the men’s national team at age 14, setting a record for being the youngest player at that level.

According to Wikipedia,

Saelua plays in full make-up whenever she [sic] takes to the football field.

known for crunching tackles [Saelua] is described as a defender who "takes no prisoners".

By Saelua's own account, all through his long career in boys’ and men’s soccer, he's always been accepted and treated well by his teammates and the other boys and men in the sport.

From a NY Times article about Saelua published in November, 2011:

In an immensely popular sport that is still encountering episodes of racism in any number of spots on the globe, it is noteworthy that Saelua has been easily accepted by [his] teammates.

Saelua is part of the fa’afafine, biological males who identify themselves as a third sex in Polynesian culture. Fa’afafine means “to be a woman” in Samoan.

“To be fa’afafine you have to be Samoan, born a man, feel you are a woman, be sexually attracted to males and, importantly, proud to be called and labeled fa’afafine,” Su’a said.

On Tuesday, the 23-year-old Saelua played a key role in American Samoa’s 2-1 victory against Tonga in a 2014 World Cup qualifier.

It was American Samoa’s first victory in international soccer, ending a 30-game losing streak in which it had been outscored by 229-12. And Saelua apparently became the first transgender player to compete on a World Cup stage.

In the match against Tonga, Saelua provided an assist on one goal and made a 90th-minute goal-line clearance with American Samoa’s goalkeeper Nicky Salapu already beaten on the play.

“He’s like a brother to us and he’s like a sister to us,” Salapu said of Saelua.

[Saelua] began playing soccer at age 11, in private school. By age 14, he had risen to be an international player for American Samoa.

“I read somewhere that it was a record when I was drafted into the national team [at such a young age]” Saelua said. “I was reserve the whole tournament and I had to leave because I was still in high school.”

[He] added that the coach “ put me in for 10 minutes.”

But Saelua is now older, and integral to the team. When the American Samoa coach Thomas Rongen — who took the United States under-20 team to three World Cup finals and won the Major League Soccer title with D.C. United in 1999 — was hired three weeks ago, he promoted Saelua to the starting lineup for the first time.

“I just go out and play soccer as a soccer player,” Saelua said. “Not as transgender, not as a boy and not as a girl. Just as a soccer player.”

Back in 2011, Saelua told the New York Times that the other players on the men’s teams he’s played on have always

“made me feel like a part of them.. They don’t make me feel different because I am the way I am. t is what anybody needs to feel wanted within a team. That is why I always do my best. I can’t let them down.”

nytimes.com

A First in Cup Qualifying for a Player and a Team (Published 2011)

By James Montague

Jonny Saelua, who is transgender, helped American Samoa to its first international victory with a 2-1 win over Tonga in World Cup qualifying on Tuesday.

Open link

So my question to you is: why do you have such a problem with the prospect of members of your own sex like Saelua, CeCe Telfer, Becky Pepper Jackson and Parker Tirrell competing in men's and boys' sports; using men's and boys' loos, locker rooms, and showers; and bunking/being housed with other blokes?

Why can't you and other men who like to preach about "diversity and inclusion" - and are always wagging your fingers at girls and women, ordering us to "be kind" to the blokes you guys don't want in your own sports and spaces - ever put your own money where your big mouths are by stepping up to "be kind" to other members of your own sex like Saelua, Telfer, Jackson and Tirrell yourselves?

Why can't men and boys like you show an accepting, welcoming and " inclusionary" attitude to members of your own sex who say they are trans?

But what "decision" did her parents have to make? Her sex was simply RECORDED, and not assigned, right? So there was no decision to be made other than simply recording her sex.

Or are you contradicting yourself?

Its time for a bigtime report on sport/gender and competition. One that clarifies and defines, based on science, law, and history. Assuming such methods rmain in this world of opinion. If there is one I would like to seeit. On a scale of The Kinsey Report or the like. Presently what I think all we are getting is fragments of opinion that cast "more heat thn light" from all quarters. Not necessary, the facts are all here? Maybe, but the confusion and injustices continue. That might help toward some unanimity and legal decision-making. Is that impossible or inadvisable? Who's gonna do it? Any suggestions? It extends far beyond sport of course, but is nowhere as pointed and painfull.

According to Wikipedia, Saelua started transitioning in 2015, when she was 27 years old. So that was after her body had fully developed as a male. BPJ never went through male puberty and PT started transitioning early in her puberty. So those are entirely different situations.It does not matter whether Saelua wore makeups or she was "gay." That has nothing to do with sports because it did not affect her athletic ability.

Saelua's teammates were also more mature at handling this situation. They were not teenage boys who would bully anyone who is different. They had also played with Saelua before transition or at least had seen her play before transition.

I have absolutely no problem with having a trans girl or woman in men's sports if that's what they want. But I cannot control what immature teenage boys do to their fellow human beings. BTW, they are not very hospitable to trans boys, either. It's rare to see trans boys talking about how they found new friends after transition.

There have been many studies, accounting for many sports, on the issue. All legitimate studies confirm there are only two sexes, males have a physical advantage in sports before puberty, which is enhanced during and post-puberty. The major media will not report on these studies. Instead, they parrot faux studies conducted by trans activists.

OK if we just give you mental midgets everything you want regarding the trans issue, will you please STFU about it and then what will you whine about next?

Alicia Roth Weigel's parents made the decision to fudge on the birth registration and birth cerificate forms in order to create a legal fiction that Alicia is female. When the reality is that Alicia is male with Complete Androgen Insensivity Syndrome or CAIS, a condition only found in males which causes a male-only DSD.

Chances are, in Weigel's medical records, Weigel's actual sex and the fact that Weigel has a rare XY DSD are recorded accurately. I certainly hope this info is recorded accurately, because if Weigel's medical records say "female" then Weigel is not going to get optimal medical care. Indeed, if Weigel's medical records say "female," then Weigel is at risk for getting very poor care and very bad medical advice.

But at any rate, whilst the sex designation "female" on Weigel's orginal birth certificate and other legal documents was indeed "assigned," it was assigned by Weigel's parents, not by a doctor as you claimed.

No one is disputing that in cases of persons with rare DSDs like Alician Roth Weigel and Caster Semenya, legal sex and "sex of rearing" are "assigned" - and they've usually been "assigned at birth" or in early childhood. I've personally never denied that this happens.

What I have taken issue with is your contention that because a teeny-tiny proportion of the human population with rare DSDs are "assigned" a sex label that's inaccurate for legal and social purposes, it means that every human beings sex is "assigned" - and everyone's sex is "assigned" in arbritrary, haphazard, manner that could well be a total lie, but even at its most accurate is just rough guesswork that's as reliable as flipping a coin, rolling the dice, or picking a label out of sorting hat.

I've also taken issue with your contention that a doctor decides which sex label to "assign" to children with rare DSDs - and to all children, for that matter. Not only does your framing completely erase mothers from the equation, it also erases fathers, grandparents, older siblings and everyone else involved in the hands-on care and rearing of babies and children with DSDs - and babies and children without DSDs too.

What's more, your framing mistakenly assumes that all women who give birth do so with a medical doctor in attendance and all babies in the world are and always have been seen and examined by a medical doctor or team of doctors when they're born or soon after. When the reality is, even today a majority of the world's women today give birth without a doctor being present - and untold millions of people around the world past and present have gone through their entire childhoods without ever seeing and being examined by a medical doctor.

Finally, I take issue another claim that those who say everyone's "sex is aassigned at birth by a doctor" routinely make, though I'm not sure if you've' ever made it yourself. Which is the claim that because the sex of some kids and adults with DSDs has been recorded and registered inaccurately on official forms and/or in medical files - whether intentionally from the get-go as in the case of the birth registration and birth cerificate of people like Alicia Roth Weigel, or because the parents and other adults involved had no idea these children had DSDs and genuinely believed they were the opposite sex - then it means no one's sex can be assumed to have been recorded and registered accurately on any documents or in any data base. Those who make this claim want the world to believe that for all anyone knows, we all might have rare DSDs that have gone unnoticed and undiagnosed - and huge swathes of the population who think they are one sex are actually the opposite sex. Which is rubbish.

Bravo! Thank you!

Based on your posts, you seem to think that anti-trans arguments may have some truth, but thinking too much about it, or making any effort to push back on trans activism and rhetoric is a sign of unhealthy obsession. That the issue is simply too minor to worry seriously about, and anyone who does is making a mountain out of a molehill.

I would agree with you, except that the issue seems very significant—not to anti-trans people, but to trans activists. It is they who saw a mountain, not a molehill, they who thought the issue was significant enough to push for laws that would allow them to compete in the gender category of their preference, to use the locker room/restroom of their preference, to mandate that their preferred name and pronouns be used, to get their surgeries and hormones covered by health insurance, to promote these ideas in schools, education curriculums, social media activism, corporate messaging, advertising and mandatory DEI training.

So it seems like a pretty significant issue. And if they insist on taking it that seriously, so do I. It is supremely disingenuous be silent at one side’s aggressively putting this issue in the public square, but then arbitrarily draw the line when the other side responds with equal seriousness.

What I resent is the animosity that is expressed toward the trans community, even though I personally have no connection with them besides being fellow humans. So we have an issue of who has what rights. I am OK if the people born male are prevented from competing as females, but it sure seems like some people want to keep this subject alive to the point where they are inventing phantoms that they can shake a stick at.

Alicia's sex was assigned based on the expectation of how she would phenotypically develop. And this is how sex is assigned in most cases today. Endosex children are assigned sex consistent with their karyotype, but that's because their karyotype matches their expected phenotype.

In the history of DSD health care, many factors have been used to determine the sex -- genitalia, gonads, sexual orientation, gender identity and so forth. But karyotype was never used as the main determinant at any point, and the dominant factor today is phenotype. Even today, there is no consensus on how sex should be determined. Any one who thinks it's easy to determine sex should read this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Bodies-Doubt-American-History-Intersex/dp/1421405830

I have a MEd in Kinesiology and I went thru the US Army Master Fitness Course at Ft. Benning, GA. There are college books and Army manuals that list all these. Also while at Benning, we were tested on pullups, as they were going to add that to our 2-minute pushup/situp/2-mile run APFT. The fitness school tested over 6,000 male/female soldiers to come up with those standards. Not sure how many they tested to come up with the 2019 standards when they went to a 5-event test.

Here is a question coming from someone who is not immersed in this subject: When you folks discuss what sex a person is “assigned” at birth, are there mistakes being made? Like what does this really mean? I would assume that in 99.9 % of the cases there is no real ambiguity? Like one looks down there and it is a no brainer? So then when one says one was assigned the wrong sex, one usually isn’t saying that a mistake was made by the assigner, but rather that the assigned feels that the mistake is due to some misalignment between their physiology and their psychological sense of what their sex should be? Does anyone understand this, in the sense of what the hell is going on here? Are these people victims of this seeming inconsistency? And if they are, or regardless, they should be treated with compassion, but it is true that their rights will have limitations predicated upon how those rights potentially infringe upon the rights of others? And it is true that some will feel slighted no matter how we slice the pie?