Sprinting to the top of the list
The Outsports Female Athlete of the Year is
you know this one already
The LGBTQ sports world was blessed in 2019 with an abundance of choices for Female Athlete of the Year. Readers nominated several women, among them:
– USWNT icon Megan Rapinoe, who made an indelible mark during the Women’s World Cup.
But who cares about her, she’s just a boring commonplace woman. They’re a dime a dozen, yawn. Outsports can do better than that.
But in terms of making an indelible mark on sports history, CeCé Telfer of Franklin Pierce University sprinted to the top of the list with her groundbreaking victory at the May 2019 NCAA Division II National Championships. Telfer beat her closest competitor by a second and a half, winning the 400m hurdles at Javelina Stadium on the campus of Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Texas.
Groundbreaking!
As far as we know, she is the first track and field NCAA champion who is an out transgender woman.
Meaning, she’s a person with a male body who won by competing against women. That’s not something to celebrate or give an award because of which.
That achievement brought her fame as well as made her a target of detractors and opponents of transgender inclusion in sports, including Donald Trump, Jr.
Those critics focus on her victory and ignore the fact that she competed within NCAA rules and placed fifth in the 100m that same day.
Apparently it’s simply beyond the realm of possibility, even of imagining, that the NCAA rules could have this wrong.
“I try to lead by example,” Telfer told Outsports. “The one quote that has been with me my whole life is; ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ And I want to be that change, a step forward in making the world a more inclusive and safe place. It’s all starts with me.”
But what Telfer did doesn’t make the world more inclusive, let alone more safe. It makes women also-rans in their own sports, and in sports like rugby it puts them in danger too. Neither inclusive nor safe.
So he wants more cheating. Got it.
Seems like all the “women” who were born men that participate in women’s sport are enormous.
Is it just me who sees ‘indelible mark’ and thinks ‘permanent stain’?
It’s not about “transgender inclusion in sport.” They’ve misidentified the topic, as usual. Trans-identified males are already fully included in “sport.” They are included in the men’s division. It’s not about inclusion vs. exclusion from “sport.” That’s a lie.
To be fair, maddog, the right of transwomen to be allowed to compete against athletes they stand a better chance of beating rather than competing on a level playing field is a human right is rather cumbersome for a slogan.
TRAs will often claim that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are words that denote gender, while ‘male’ and ‘female’ are words that denote sex, and that while sex is real, people can jump genders and switch words to mark this.
But.
Female is right there in the goddamn name: Outsports Female Athlete of the Year.
TRAs fucking love this canard. “If being male is such an advantage, why aren’t trans women winning everything?” Well, because saying that someone has an ‘advantage’ doesn’t necessarily mean that the advantage is overwhelming. It does not mean their victory is assured.
Think of dice games. If I have dice that are slightly weighted – enough that I have maybe a 5% higher average die roll (over a large number of rolls), does that mean I am guaranteed to win a game that requires high rolls? No, of course it doesn’t. But am I cheating all the same? I sure am. It’s an advantage which gives me an unearned edge in such a game, and so it is cheating.
Pretty simple.
Holms, it is pretty simple, but wasted on those who take every criticism to the extreme. To those people, suggesting an advantage is nonsense unless the person with the advantage is winning everything; saying that a person cannot literally change sex is denying a transperson’s very existence; pointing out physical differences between men and women equates to an obsession with genitals; questioning allowing transwomen into women’s safe spaces is calling all transwomen rapists.
There is no chance of a reasonable conversation when the other side distort your words out of all recognition.