flyingfrog wrote:
SOLVED - Let Trans compete in the male division and at the end of the race place them in the 'open' division for awards and records, M-F and F-M can be in this division. Their time won't count in the male or female division or team standings. And by competing in the men's heats they won't deny a girl a chance to advance to the finals, I am assuming that she wouldn't advance in the male division.
I like the idea of that because it comes off more humanely. If it could work, that might be a good option, but that, too, has some things that present challenges:
A) It'd be no issue in huge heats like the 10,000m or long jump, but what about the 100, 200, 400, 800, where lanes are at a premium? Obviously, the best 8-9 athletes will be overwhelmingly male, so how do you run the finals for the three categories?
-Take the top three from each category (M->F, F->M, M). I hate that because who wants to only have the top three male athletes in the final?
-Just take the best M->F and F->M times in the early rounds and rank them. I don't think that will pass, because you aren't giving those athletes a chance to compete in a final against their peers. Optically it basically implies they aren't as worthwhile as the pure M and F categories, so it won't be accepted.
B) You still have a host of other sports in college (and the Olympics) that are team sports. For obvious reasons, you can't have trans athletes compete alongside male athletes, but still in a separate category in basketball or volleyball.
C) If the trans athletes are competing alongside the males, but in their own category (even though they won't beat the males, but can still "win"), I think you are going to face a lot of heat in justifying why trans women can't just compete with females, and there will just be two divisions (F winner and M->F winner). Maybe that's the compromise that would have to be made. I don't really like that idea, but there's no way that doesn't come off as transphobic, because it essentially implies that only "real" men and women can actually break the tape.
I'm not trying to be a hater on the idea. Really, I probably agree with you on what is fair and all, but I also know that any weakness in a proposal is gonna be shot down for a whole host of reasons. You gotta convince people like Lenny Leonard, et. al who believe that changing your gender identity changes everything and makes it right to compete in the category of your choice. They don't have to love the idea, but there can't be terrible optical issues either.