Think about the message it sends to women and girls
The Guardian has a piece by Hannah Mouncey, an Australian trans woman who plays Australian rules football.
Graham Denholm/AFL Media/Getty Images
That’s Mouncey in the red jersey.
Late last week, the AFL released its long-awaited policy on transgender participation in Australian rules football. In it are a set of requirements trans women need to follow if they aim to play at AFLW level. These include having your testosterone below a certain level for two years, which I have no problem with, as well as the requirement that trans women undertake number of physical tests designed to ascertain if they have an advantage over cis women playing AFLW – the presumption being that this is because they are trans.
What does that mean, “the presumption being that this is because they are trans”? Surely the issue isn’t that they are trans but that they have male bodies.
The reasons I’m critical of the AFL’s policy are not the reasons people may assume. Essentially, every physical requirement the policy asks me to meet I will. I know what I can do, and I know how I compare overall. Yet, there are still a number of issues surrounding how the policy is applied.
It is not yet clear, for example, if the data being used by the AFL to compare cis and trans women can be independently verified. Nor can we be sure the clubs have accurately reported their data. The question that has been answered by the AFL, however, is that if a trans athlete and a non-trans athlete were both to perform above average on their testing regime, the trans athlete would be excluded from AFLW, but the cis athlete wouldn’t. Not very consistent, or fair.
Hold on just a second there. Framing it as “trans athlete” and “cis athlete” makes it sound like underdog and oppressor – but again, the issue isn’t “trans athlete,” it’s “athlete with male body.” In Mouncey’s case, very large solid powerful body. Even if you buy into the idea that “cis” people have privilege over trans people, that doesn’t automatically cancel out the advantage male bodies have over female bodies in sports like football.
My biggest concern is the fact that weight is being used as one of the key physical measures for possible exclusion. Forget the fact that in a game that has such an emphasis on endurance and speed, being heavy is not necessarily an advantage and think about the message it sends to women and girls about their bodies: if you’re too big, you can’t play. That is incredibly dangerous and backward.
Aw yeah, I’m sure that’s really what Mouncey cares about.
But what I find most puke-worthy here is Mouncey’s willingness and in fact determination to do this thing – to play a contact sport on a women’s team while having a body like a brick shithouse. That’s got nothing to do with being trans, it’s all about being an entitled self-centered shit.
Updating to add another photo of Mouncey playing on the women’s team:
I think this sort of thing should be divided into weight classes as well. Because even if you exclude trans women (as I agree you should) without weight classes you could easily have a 100 pound five foot woman against a 160 pound 5 foot seven women, or some such. I mean, you wouldn’t want Keira Knightley up against Serena Williams, you know?
True, you wouldn’t.
I know players of US football have been getting much bigger over time – that is, the teams select ever-bigger players. Maybe that’s how it generally works? The people who do the selecting – coaches I assume – choose bigger or slimmer-faster or whatever. But then different body types are needed within sports…it all must be quite tricky. Then again we now know that US football is lethal, so there’s that.
It gets more lethal the larger the bodies get. F=MA, after all; in US football the players (especially the linemen) have gotten a lot bigger without slowing down noticeably, so the lethality is increasing. So even if you segregated by weight, the players in the larger weight classes would be more susceptible to major injury.
There is plenty of precedent across the ditch around people being excluded from their chosen sport because of body characteristics (and skill levels). None of them trans related. Over the years there have been several instances of young (10-13) polynesian teen males being excluded from their age group sports because they had bodies more characteristic of large adults. Problem being that those large frames and their joints are not battle hardened the way someone who has been playing contact sport into their late teens/early 20’s is. More to the point, an 11 year old lad isn’t going to have the emotional resilience to pick himself off the ground after having been slammed by an adult male, in the way that a battle hardened will (don’t believe me, watch a game of league or rugby). By the same token, a teen girl who plays football (soccer), has been kicked out of her league because she is too good. The school wants her to play in the boy’s team, which is in a higher grade. She wants to play in the boy’s team. Other boy’s teams want her to play. The controlling body is saying no because they are concerned she will not be able to take the knocks that come with playing with bigger boys.
Part of the issue is that womens sport is often a bit thin in terms of depth. 20 years ago the women playing rugby for the national team would never have held their own against the guys. They probably wouldn’t now because the level has stepped up so much. But they could certainly hold their own against a provincial side. This is because as the depth in the sport has increased there are more big, fit, skilled women playing. You still wouldn’t take someone from a lower tier team and throw them against a typical male though.
We all recognise that there is massive overlap in men’s and women’s physical capability, but the reality is that when you start selecting for specific sporting capabilities, at a particular level male bodies do tend to carry a significant advantage. Male psyche adds to that advantage significantly.
Anna,
In AFL, weight classes would be impractical. In men’s football players physiques range from 2m (6ft 7″) to average height, depending on their positions in the team. There is also less time out and delays in play compared to other types of football. Many parents in Australia encourage their children to play soccer rather than the gladiatorial AFL or rugby where body mass is critical.
Ophelia,
I wonder if all the ‘protection’ makes US football more dangerous.
On the lethality, head trauma is becoming less common in Aussie Rules because of arm-only tackling. But full body blocking is allowed and that’s where head clashes can occur. And they can be worse than other codes because they are side- on, between players who don’t see them coming and aren’t physically/athletically trained to take hits.
So that’s what got me thinking. That big male skull, atop that big male body, smashing headfirst into contests. It’s really quite outrageous.
A further disadvantage to cis-women in these contests is that they probably came to full-contact football later in life. They haven’t spent years developing the physique and skills needed to take hits.
RJW, there’s no debate about the protection. It encourages hard hits and heads-up tackling. The protection increases danger.
RJW – all the ‘protection’ does make US football more dangerous. I’ve seen a lot of reporting on this. The protection in fact is a big part of why there’s so much brain trauma: for years people thought helmets just generally “protected” the head but what in fact happens is that yes the head as a whole is protected, but inside the head, WHAM the brain slams against the skull. Turns out slamming against the skull – aka concussion – is REALLY not good for brains.
Ophelia,
Yes, the various football organisations here have finally acknowledged the accumulated effects of repeated concussions. Early onset Pakinson’s is a rather big price to pay.
Oops , ‘Parkinson’s’
The man was a virtual tank, and his sheer size and weight was most certainly an advantage when he was running full-speed straight through opposing teams, scattering them like skittles.
Borked blockquote. Time for bed, methink.
A o S @11
I’m not sure you’re correct, the key characteristic is endurance. Rugby is a rather slow moving game compared to soccer or AFL where players are constantly ‘on the go’ and the ball passes rapidly up and down the field. The occasional rapid periods of play in rugby or US football are not comparable.
I’m not a football fan btw.
Women’s sports teams were created to increase athletic opportunities for women. Mixing the sexes would reduce female participation in sports where male bodies have a statistical advantage, yes, but it would also take some focus off of the goal of providing opportunities for women.
I was involved in a discussion here where I brought up the case of Caster Semenya, an intersex woman who competes at a high level in track events. The hormone based sex policing I think does her a disservice. But surely there is enough difference between a biologically intersex person and a male person who chooses to modify his body into a simulation of a female one, and the latter can be discovered in a way that doesn’t penalize the former? Allowing intersex athletes to compete in women’s sports seems to have little impact on the goal of providing opportunities for women, Semenya’s records notwithstanding; I don’t think the same can be said regarding male bodied athletes, particularly those who competed at a high level as boys or men.
RJW, Rugby used to be a slow moving game. Now, with superior fitness, perfect playing surfaces and frankly unhuman like abilities, modern rugby at elite level is played at an astounding pace. Easily as mobile as a football game. Then again, looking at the poor lost Aussie team, I can understand your view. ;-)
Okay, that was unkind. I really wish the Aussie team was more competitive. it made for exciting rugby back in the day.
AoS is also correct to the point hat Lomu really stood out against the players of his day. He’d still make the AB’s of today, while in his prime. But he really wouldn’t stand out in quite the same way.
Rob,
It’s not really the Aussie team just two states from the north east.
Let’s face reality there is only one football game in the world that really matters.
Makes me wonder again why we’re not seeing a lot of rows over transwomen participating in women’s gymnastics or figure skating…maybe, in general, they’re not that interested in participating unless they know they have an innate advantage?
Interesting that prior to transitioning, Mouncey didn’t play Aussie Rules, but was in the Australian men’s national handball squad, which is similar to basketball but played with ice hockey-sized goals on the ground rather than small nets suspended high up, and physical contact between players is minimal.
I’m not suggesting for a second that she transitioned to be able to play against smaller opposition, just remarking that she didn’t play the more physical sport prior to transitioning when she (or he, back then) would have been competing on a level field, but switched sports (although she does also play women’s handball) when she clearly had an advantage over the majority of her opponents and was thus almost guaranteed selection in her squad. Chances are, there is also less chance of being badly hurt now, than if she’d played the men’s game.
The whole point of sex segregation in sports, especially in contact sports, is competetive fairness. Mouncey has a 1.9m and 100kg male body. That’s large even by male averages, and grants an advantage that is ‘locked in’ as those metrics are tied to skeletal size, and skeletal size is determined by genetics and the hormone mix an individual has while developing. Mouncey is now 28; that advantage is not going anywhere, testosterone blocking or not.