Female athletes, beaten by boys, claim Title IX violation

I'm not sure if I'm PC, but I'm a pretty extreme feminist when it comes to women's sports. Participating in gender segregated sports starting in 4th grade changed my life, after spending the prior years on the bench, even when boys at that age probably don't have a huge biological advantage.

For me, it's extremely easy. if you're pro-women, you're pro-women's sports, and that means no boys. No men. And no XY women, period.

There's nothing "fun" about this. It's depressing and sad. Note that the group that took this lawsuit on is a right-wing Christian group, whereas I think the ACLU should be taking it. No doubt the girls who were brave enough to sign up to be the faces of this lawsuit will be demonized. It sucks. But I sure as hell hope that justice prevails and women's sports are protected.

Oh, and I agree with Letsrun that the Connecticut editorial is a bunch of nonsense.

Competition is a critical part of amateur sport. If they stop keeping score (as have done at under 10 soccer), stop listing athletes results in time order, but simply in lane order, and stop progressing winners to higher levels of competition (ie state meets), then I would agree with you that it's about participation. In that case, when there is no reward for winning or being faster or stronger, I would have no problem with trans participation in women's sports that are non-contact. (Previous posts suggest that it's dangerous in contact sports.)

HOWEVER, this is very obviously not the case. For a very large percentage of female amateur athletes, competition is the reason to play. It's what makes them thrive. I am an amateur athlete. I love competition, even though I'm far from a star. But fair competition - I've never had to compete against a man (that I know of), but I'd be pissed if I had to. Massively unfair.

The girls and women have got to do it. They need to rid all males in each female event (including Semenya, everyone's sweetfart).

GD wrote:

Last, but not least, I see very little conversation about transmen being excluded from sport. Are they allowed to compete in the men's category while taking exogenous testosterone? If so, do any have a chance of winning or being elite? The obvious thing happening with transgirls and women is that they don't have to be elite to win at the elite level. The fact that we don't see transmen winning at the elite male level is telling. I wonder if an elite female could become an elite man upon transitioning (testosterone, etc.). Females are categorically harmed by identity vs. sex-based participation categories. That's a fact regardless of one's politics.

That's because no matter how much testosterone you give an XX they will never approach the best XY. This highlights one of the reasons that hormone therapy is not the answer to allowing XY to compete in the XX division. You will never hear of this problem with FtoM and never will. Where as with MtoF if you have an average male they are suddenly a world class female athlete.

There is this fanciful idea that you can just apply hormone therapy and everything evens out. No it doesn't. Some of the best XX in the world have been given massive amounts of steroids and never approached XY times. It is just wishful thinking hormone therapy evens the field and that an XY should be allowed to compete against XX with it.

Even if that fantasy was true, it is unethical to require someone to take drugs to compete. It is in direct conflict with why we have anti-doping in the first place.

It's about dam time wrote:

About time someone takes a stand against this nonsense.

+1

Christians have rights too!

My ever so important opinion...

Many people on letsrun were pretty competitive athletes in high school and had a different experience from the average high school athlete. The very competitive successful athlete in high school was very focused on external competition, whereas the majority of athletes will never even dream of going to state or even know that a state competition exists. For these students athletes the competition is internal.

I believe David S falls into the internal competition camp and is not so bothered by losing to someone that has an unfair advantage because it’s not why he’s there to begin with. Those of you who think a lot of kids really dream of and think they can win a state title are pretty far removed from the reality of high school sport. I’ve coached hundreds of kids in high school. Some have won state titles. Some of have done quite well at NXN and Footlocker or the postseason national track meets but 98% of the kids I’ve coached know they ain’t never going to be running at that level. It’s not why they are in the sport.

As a former professional that also coaches high school I understand both sides.

No way did those two girls write those statements alone. They definitely sound like the same person wrote them and what 17 year old talks like that anymore?

I want to leave a disclaimer that I'm not an expert on trans issues, these are just my opinions and they may be uninformed. Happy to discuss with you.

I think most track and field athletes are hard working people. I think they want to compete as their gender and live their lives as their gender all the time. I don't think anyone would want to be transgender just to win races. The amount of crap you would have to go through from your friends and family and the rest of society would never make it worthwhile.

There are a few Robert Youngs of the world but they seem to be pretty easily identified.

This is the whole point. CeCe didn't have it all. She was a woman competing in the male category. The whole point of transitioning is that she doesn't want other people to view her as male. She didn't want to be competing in the male category. A lot of transpeople don't even want to be known as trans. It has a stigma in our society. Forcing CeCe to compete as a woman in a male race for 60 seconds once a week is a weekly reminder to herself and to every athlete she competes against that she was born male. Usain Bolt became known as the fastest man in the world after 10 seconds of running once every month or two. A trans woman can't be female if she's known to compete as a man. It seems to me that requiring a trans person compete as their birth sex goes against the whole purpose of being trans.

Yeah it's hard to balance these issues. But here's another way to think about it: if you're a high school runner then the odds are pretty slim that allowing transgender athletes to compete will ruin running for you. Maybe it will take some luster away from the occasional victory by a top runner. But if you're a transwoman then the odds are 100% that a ban on transwomen will ruin running for you.

I've stated that I think allowing kids to have the opportunity for some organized athletic outlet is pretty important to their lives, and I think that need outweighs the occasional loss by a cis girl at the high school level.

As far as the specific video, the gap is big but it's not like she ran a historically fast time. People are getting upset about a 12.66 for 100m? What did 3rd place run? I'm not trying to be insensitive (I can't run that fast!), but if we're going to allow transwomen to compete then they're going to win sometimes, and this doesn't seem like a performance that should be out of reach for cis girls.

I get your point of view. But you also have to acknowledge that from the perspective of the trans athlete, you cannot compete as a man once a week and live as a woman.

I don't really get the logic behind this argument about high school being the highest level of sport for most people. I can make a silly analogy: The highest level of cycling that most people ever do is riding their bike to work, and I swear to god some of these assholes try to beat me to every single stoplight. Does that mean transpeople should be banned from commuting? :p

I think the point we're both trying to make is that high school sports are important to people. Maybe for different reasons.

I agree that chromosomal sex is an easier metric, but I think it's pretty onerous to ban transwomen from all competitive sports.

I disagree. It's both genetic and social. Title IX for instance wasn't created because people suddenly realized women and men had genetic differences, it was created because of ongoing discrimination against women. Another poster ("Pro Women") mentioned starting gender-segregated sports in 4th grade when genetic differences weren't even significant, and she said it was important to her. Chess is sometimes segregated by gender as I said before, and it's not because we think men have better chess brains. Shooting a pistol is segregated by gender at the Olympics, I don't think anyone argues that men have a huge advantage there (if anything I hear women are sometimes better). There are a lot of social reasons why we have women's sports and it's not just genetics.

Sorry if this is starting to get repetitive, I'm going to wind it down a bit.

Whoever this David S guy is, let me just throw my vote in for him to start writing for Letsrun. This site could use someone who doesn't always seem to align with what Rojo thinks or even what might be popular on the board. Lots of excellent points being made here.

I don't think that the issue that I was describing is limited to people who dream of being state champions. Some of the women on this thread have been chiming in saying that they'd be pissed if they had to compete in the same division against a guy regardless of the level of competition.

I also don't think it's as simple as distinguishing between internally and externally motivated people. What I was trying to say is that ultimately, the two are linked. Most successful athletes are internally motivated. After all, at the end of the day, we all lose to Kipchoge. But the essence of the activity is still TRYING to beat other people and being happy with the effort you put forth.

I take your point that high school sports are not always serious. Not in every program and not for every athlete. I used to coach high school girls XC and track as well, and one of the things I loved about it compared to coaching soccer is that it was easy to accept different levels of interest and commitment. Provided everyone actually showed up and wasn't disruptive, I tried to make it clear that I didn't like or respect a runner any less because she was just there for a bit of social interaction and to get in shape. In my experience, however, I would say that these athletes were not particularly internally motivated either. There were also slow runners who were very motivated, both internally and externally. I had a girl who was literally the slowest half miler in the conference. But she was ruthlessly dedicated. Even in the "C group" for workouts, she would always ask if she could do as many reps as the "A group," albeit at her own pace. And when she beat someone in the last meet of the year, making her only the second slowest runner in the conference, it was a very proud day for her.

David S wrote:It has a stigma in our society. Forcing CeCe to compete as a woman in a male race for 60 seconds once a week is a weekly reminder to herself and to every athlete she competes against that she was born male.

The thing is, it's a weekly reminder of something that's objectively true. What you seem to be saying is that because of the social difficulty of being trans, everyone else should pretend that she doesn't have an advantage that is fundamentally inconsistent with her participation in women's sport (which you acknowledge because you say trans women shouldn't be able to compete against women at the Olympics). But we wouldn't let someone who is disabled race a track mile on a bicycle just because it makes him feel better, no matter how socially difficult it is to deal with his disability.

And to be clear, I absolutely agree with you that the difficulties that a trans woman faces are worse than what a superstar female sprinter has to go through missing out on a medal to a trans athlete. I don't think anyone here (at least anyone serious) is contesting the difficulty of being a trans woman. Though, as I pointed out before, from the perspective of the other female athletes, it's not the lost podium spot that really matters; it's that allowing MTF athletes to compete against women devalues women as athletes regardless of the level at which they compete.

But I don't think the question should be simply trying to identify which psychological pain is worse and then making the choice that minimizes it. We also have to ask whether the means by which we minimize someone's social burdens are just. I think that if we choose to make someone feel better by essentially lying in a way that also harms someone else, even if that harm is less than the benefit someone else receives, that's wrong. But if you disagree with that, then we're really getting down to first principles that are pretty difficult to meaningfully debate.

Glad I recently moved out of Connecticut, too many nonrational liberals ruin the place. Apparently a lot of other people have felt the same way, in light of Connecticut population decline

Yes, for a lot of people I think the crux of the issue is whether trans women should or could be treated like cis women.

David S wrote:

Yes, for a lot of people I think the crux of the issue is whether trans women should or could be treated like cis women.

That isn't remotely what I said.

Well discrimination of men changed your life. Nice to hear. Just because you are Not a good enough athlete to compete you should not get prefered treatment over male humans

Trans are always awarded the gold in the Grievance Olympics.

Pro women wrote:

There's nothing "fun" about this. It's depressing and sad. Note that the group that took this lawsuit on is a right-wing Christian group, whereas I think the ACLU should be taking it. No doubt the girls who were brave enough to sign up to be the faces of this lawsuit will be demonized. It sucks. But I sure as hell hope that justice prevails and women's sports are protected.

Not being totally facetious. I think all you'd need to have the ACLU, major media, twitter mob,

etc. take the girls side is to have Trump tweet 'Go Semenya go'.

To get a national injunction against trans competing against girls have the Trump

justice department file a pro-trans compete lawsuit in the 9th circuit.

Point is, politics has infiltrated everything these days. A common sense argument--and I think Semenya and

the Connecticut case should fall under common sense; others could be less clear--is not going

to do it in court.