Guest post: There already exists a solution
Originally a comment by maddog on Cyclist and expert.
Let boys compete in girls’ competitions, but don’t count their wins
^^ This suggested model is a “solution” that doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: Why should boys compete in the girls’ division at all? There already exists a solution for boys who want to play sports: they can play in the boys’ division. “Where can boys play sports?” has NEVER been a problem. Wailing about, “where can this boy play?” is a ridiculous non-problem
He can play in the boys’ division, that already exists for him. Boys’ sports get the lion’s share of attention and resources, just as it always has been. Historically, girls haven’t had nearly as many opportunities to play sports, and still get fewer resources.
There’s no reason to even raise a question about “how much” of the resources devoted to girls’ sports should be diverted to boys instead. It doesn’t matter if the boys who enter girls’ sports don’t win, or if their wins “don’t count.” Every boy who plays in the girls’ division has stolen the resources that should have gone to a girl. Every single spot occupied by a boy has been stolen from a girl. “Not counting” a boy’s win does nothing to compensate the girl who was robbed of a chance to enter her own competition.
Why not Co-Ed sports that were pushed some thirty years ago. If it’s supposedly about the need and desire to play sports then there are plenty of co-ed teams to play own. Leave the girls individual competitive sport to girls who want to prove themselves and perhaps win a scholarship to a University.
Co-ed sports are unsatisfactory. They want the boys-who-claim-to-be-girls to be treated as girls, and for there to be nothing that actual girls can get or have or do such that these boys are “excluded”. It’s been seen in restroom and locker room conflicts: they don’t want safe separate locker rooms, they want to use the girls’ locker room. And they want the scholarships, and the team spots, and all that. Co-ed leagues simply won’t provide the validation.
It’s the asymmetric nature of this as well. No one is worried about trans-boys playing in male sports being unfair to boys.
Jaiyah Selua causes no one any problems. Male-born, identifies as a woman, plays for the American Samoa men’s team. Competes in a category for males, but lives as a woman otherwise. Apparently a very physical player, and for 7 years competing without controversy.
@ Sackbut #2
Right. And they want that access to the bathrooms and locker rooms for two distinct reasons. They want to look at the naked/vulnerable girls and women. They also want the girls and women to have to look at their naked bodies. It’s both sides of a pornography film.
@JA
There’s was Trans-identified female high-schooler in Texas who was taking hormones and wanted to wrestle on the Boy’s team. Texas, however, had a law forbidding sports-by-gender-identity and said wrestler proceeded to quite literally wipe the floor with the girl wrestlers — undefeated seasons and 2 State championships. Obviously, the testosterone made a difference.
The funny thing is that TRAs use this story as a “gotcha” — as a reason for ALL transgender-identified students to play on the teams they identify with. Wouldn’t it instead show that testosterone gives an unfair advantage and boys shouldn’t play on girls’ teams? I suspect that Mack Beggs has a level of testosterone either less than or equal to high school Trans girls.
How would that even work for team sports? Once we put a boy in, some girl loses her spot.
Yep, what southwest88 said. I played competitive team sports, and even just making the team at all can be a big deal. Even if you’re riding the bench, being on the team gives you chances and training opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise. We all spent months training JUST for tryouts, and then the real work started. Girls were often crushed by losing out to other girls, now imagine you add boys into the mix…
Also, you can’t not count wins in a team situation without punishing the entire team. And it would still upset TRAs even if you did, because forfeiting is a common punishment for roster violations, so you’d still be implying that having a boy on the roster constituted a roster violation.
@ Sastra #6:
The female trans wrestler.was.assigned to the correct (girls’) division, but ffs she was doping/juicing on testosterone, and should have been disqualified.
Depends what’s more important to you: do you want to participate in sports, or do you want to take testosterone for whatever reason? Is “gender identity” of primary importance, or is “being qualified to play within the rules” your priority? Your choice. But choices have consequences.
@ maddog1129, brings to mind all those women who went without children because they couldn’t make it work as well as their athletic/academic/business/entrepreneurial career. They made that choice. They *had to* make that choice, because other options didn’t exist.
“My preferences to take performance enhancing drugs shouldn’t be considered cheating because cheating isn’t my aim, it’s a side effect” isn’t something sports should support.
When I first encountered the term Co-Eds for schoolgirls I found it revolting, and 50 years later I still do. Effectively it means that real education is for boys, but nowadays we’re so modern that we allow girls to come too.
There is the adjective “co-ed”, meaning simply mixed sex, and there is the noun “co-ed”, referring to female students, presuming that the “real” students are young men and these young women are being added to make the school “co-ed” (adjective). I share the rejection of the noun form, and I admit that the adjective form is tainted by association with the noun, but I still find the adjective useful.
I’ve had people tell me that they won’t use the term “minority”. A bit of inquiry reveals that they are thinking only of the noun form, and then only when applied to individual people. I think this is a similar situation.
In one of the first classes I took in college, there was this guy who was one of the most overtly misogynistic people I had encountered up to that time. He was constantly referring to the female students as “co-eds”, always with a sneer. He would say things like, “That was pretty good, for a co-ed”, and, when we had to do a paired project, he announced, “I’ll say this, I’m not going to work with a co-ed.” The instructor threatened to make him work with a female partner, but the women said, “Hey, what if we don’t want to work with him?”, scuttling that idea.
I’ve no objection to the adjective, though usually I’d spell it out: “my school was for boys only when I was there, but no it’s co-educational.”
Spelling it out works much of the time. “Co-ed adult kickball league starting next month at the Community Center” is long enough, and “co-educational” makes it sound like it’s for students or perhaps instructive. There needs to be a better word.
Co-ed as a noun means women? That explains quite a few occasions of confusion when reading. I assume it’s a US thing? Or have I just slept a lot over this side of the pond?
bascule
Yes and no. Historically it has meant that in the US but I have always thought that was both idiotic and insulting, even back a thousand years ago when it was a very common word. It’s not so common any more, thank you jesus, but if you see it in a US context yes that’s what it means.
Not asking anyone to either watch or approve of porn, but if you can stomach/risk an internet search using key words it’s sometimes instructive to go that far.
‘Co-ed porn’ for instance seems to throw up what would be described as ‘barely legal’ girls.
Not a common phrase in NZ in any context other than mixed sex schooling and certainly not used to describe the female component of that mix.