From 72nd as a male to champion as a female

RunRagged wrote:

moultonk wrote:

No, RunRagged, sports will not end up male only if they compete against each other in the same event. This weekend I competed against 10,000 people and more than half of them were women. I competed against myself, my age group, my gender, my age group and gender, the best runners and slower runners, and runners of different genders. No big deal, at least in America. This big debate about trans athletes is an artifact of the strict gender and sex segregation that exists in sports.

But as you yourself say, the race you competed in this weekend, there wasn't just one set of awards - there were female and male winners, as well as winners within each age group. If the female category were removed and there was just one set of "sex neutral" winners, it might not make much of a difference to you - but it certainly would make a difference to the female runners.

Also, your experience as an adult participating in a road running event isn't a good way to guage the consequences of having one sports category for both sexes, with only one set of sex-neutral awards. You have to look at the impacts this would have starting when athletes are little kids, and across all sports including team sports.

Little League Baseball has been open to both sexes equally since 1974. From 1974 to 2019, more than 11,400 boys made it to the Little League World Series - and 19 girls.

Making girls compete against boys in organized mixed sex sports is the perfect way to discourage girls from going out for most sports in the first place. Even before puberty of adolescence, boys outperform girls in nearly all sports - so starting in childhood the places on teams and winners' podiums will go almost entirely to males.

Girls will end up doing other things for exercise, as so many in the US did in the days before Title IX. And as so many girls and women have done in the decades since (when girls and women have turned out for aerobics, yoga, dance, Zumba, jazzercise, spin classes, etc at much higher rates than boys and men).

More likely, in today's increasingly sedentary, screen-focused era, making girls compete in sports against boys will mean girls will grow up not doing much in the way of exercise at all.

billymills1964 wrote:

I wonder how many girls who say they are boys are competing with them?

And I wonder what the advocates of this guy running in a girls race would say if a 20 year old 15:30/5K guy decided that he was a 14 year old boy because he always felt like he was born too soon.

Should he be allowed to compete for the next 4 years against high school kids?

Maybe the social construct of age hasn’t been studied but would that be allowed?

I’m not being a deliberate smart ass because this is about the spirit of true competition and how this ever happens or has been approved by some administrator is beyond my comprehension.

Races, games and other competitive events don’t allow entries for so many reasons including steroids, weight in youth football, nationality (Zola Budd for example), age and countless others.

moultonk wrote:

RunRagged wrote:

But as you yourself say, the race you competed in this weekend, there wasn't just one set of awards - there were female and male winners, as well as winners within each age group. If the female category were removed and there was just one set of "sex neutral" winners, it might not make much of a difference to you - but it certainly would make a difference to the female runners.

Also, your experience as an adult participating in a road running event isn't a good way to guage the consequences of having one sports category for both sexes, with only one set of sex-neutral awards. You have to look at the impacts this would have starting when athletes are little kids, and across all sports including team sports.

Little League Baseball has been open to both sexes equally since 1974. From 1974 to 2019, more than 11,400 boys made it to the Little League World Series - and 19 girls.

Making girls compete against boys in organized mixed sex sports is the perfect way to discourage girls from going out for most sports in the first place. Even before puberty of adolescence, boys outperform girls in nearly all sports - so starting in childhood the places on teams and winners' podiums will go almost entirely to males.

Girls will end up doing other things for exercise, as so many in the US did in the days before Title IX. And as so many girls and women have done in the decades since (when girls and women have turned out for aerobics, yoga, dance, Zumba, jazzercise, spin classes, etc at much higher rates than boys and men).

More likely, in today's increasingly sedentary, screen-focused era, making girls compete in sports against boys will mean girls will grow up not doing much in the way of exercise at all.

There is a lack of imagination here. You just assume the rules for baseball, for example, must allow the number of male/other/female players on a team to be lopsided. But it would not be so difficult for the rules to require that HS baseball teams have 4 males, 4 females, and 1 flexible other on the field at all times. In that context, a trans player would be unremarkable. Yes, there would likely be a few rule changes to make it safer and more enjoyable for everyone, but it's still baseball, and still healthy competitive sport.