The development comes after a presentation to the International Olympic Committee by its medical chief, which highlighted the potential physical advantages of competing in women’s sport after being born male.
The development comes after a presentation to the International Olympic Committee by its medical chief, which highlighted the potential physical advantages of competing in women’s sport after being born male.
Just make the mens competition an “open” competition so that anybody can qualify if they can. A trans-woman competing in the “open” category would be no problem.
Other categories can then stay protected.
In many sports it already is
We’re only a matter of time from a sporting regime where it’s just broadly “open” to a level bordering on chaos, and it’s the only thing that is going to keep people watching.
The “should trans people compete” debate is going to be overshadowed by the “should people with extra hearts and enhanced organs be allowed to compete” debate.
The idea of “preserving fairness” in sports is wild when you think about it. Nothing about sports is “fair” you only succeed by getting an unfair advantage over your opponents, we just like to delude ourselves into thinking that because we set some kind of parameters around this capability to gain an advantage, that it’s “fair.”
'cause I know I feel welcome, and not completely othered and invalidated when I’m forced to play on a team that is otherwise entirely men, whom have athletic advantage over me
Who said it would be entirely men? Chess had this format forever and any woman that had the ability to compete in the top level open tournaments was competing in them.
Same chess where men creep on women and female grandmasters report being harassed whenever they try to compete alongside men?
I don’t think women feel welcome when you can accost them and if they say anything they’re just a bitch lying to cause problems.
So instead of addressing the misogyny, let’s sweep it under the rug by not allowing women to compete in the top tournaments? By your logic, shouldn’t we just make a third transgender category to solve the transphobia?
My logic? People are acting like men’s divisions are the open divisions when it’s very much closed to anyone not wanting to endure constant harassment. I don’t think adding facts to the discussion implies any logic aside from the logic in valuing the truth.
Ok, so I misunderstood and you actually agree we should have an open (mixed gender) division? Just adding we also need to work on preventing harassment and discrimination?
Otherwise, you are adding the logic stating that because harassment exists, we shouldn’t have mixed gender tournaments. Which implies we also need separate transgender tournaments, since they are also at risk for harassment in the existing ones.
First hand experience
Couldn’t there just be an open category in addition to men’s and women’s?
It would be dominated by men.
I don’t think men need a protected category for most sports, so having both would just be duplication.
If nothing else, it’s just options for someone to pick from. Why allow one person more choices and not another? Everyone should have the same ability to choose.
We already have that. Men can join the men’s sport, which is usually open, like the NHL, but a restricted group can join the women’s sport. So women already have two choices - join a group where they are statistically unlikely to win, or compete against a group which is a better representation of her peers.
If you want more restricted groups, sure, why not? But the more groups there are, the more most sports will be diluted.