Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Casual observers.

Women’s sports only exist to exclude males. If women’s sports included males, there would no longer be women’s sports.

It’s a matter of fairness. As soon as anyone wants to be more “inclusive” you know fairness is about to get screwed over, and somebody is going to be cheated out of a spot on the team, or a place on the podium. When it comes to fairness in sports, segregation by sex is as basic as segregation by age, but does anyone push to include high school students “included” in primary school sports, or adults in children’s divisions? No. Why not?

We’re often told that “You’re as young as you feel.” Why shouldn’t anyone take this as literally as “TWAW?” It makes as much sense, and when you think about it, the “arguments” and claims of trans activism have already blazed a path that could as easily be followed by those who wish to put adults into children’s sports as it has been by those who have successfully put men and boys into female sports. Here’s why.

Every adult human being has actually already been a child. Most will retain memories of what their childhood was like, how it really was to be a child. Not a guess, not a costume, not a collection of stereotypes of what a child is “supposed” to do, or like, or appear. Actual experience. Short of the loss of memory through injury, trauma, or aging, nothing can take those memories and experiences away. Nobody will ever be able to claim you were never a child.

No man has ever been a woman. They have never experienced being a woman, and never will, whatever hormones, drugs or surgical procedures they put themselves through. The most they’ll be able to do is give an impression or performance, most likely based on sexist, patriarchal stereotypes. Everyone will know that he was never a girl or woman, and never will be.

Some adults and older children have “mental ages” that are much younger. For whatever reason, congenital or pathological, brain development, personality, information processing and intelligence are delayed, or stalled at what one would expect for someone younger. This is not always obvious by observing, but might show itself through interactions with others. There will be a range of abilities and deficits, with a spread of intelligence and aptitudes, with some individuals able to live healthy, independent lives, and others requiring life-long constant care and support, without which they would be unable to get by. There’s a wide range in between these extremes. Many people within this range of mental age, capability, and development will pass as neurotypical, and not exhibit any particular mental difficulty without interaction and careful observation. But in many instances, mentally at least, these people are stll, essentially, children.

There are children who suffer from Progeria, a condition which results in abnormally rapid aging. It is not evident at birth, but can show itself within a year or two, most often initially as a slowing of growth. According to the Mayo Clinic: Heart problems or strokes are the eventual cause of death in most children with progeria. The average life expectancy for a child with progeria is about 13 years. Some with the disease may die younger and others may live longer, even up to 20 years.

I am not going to make any further mention of adults who have the mental age of children, or children who age prematurely, but I know that like trans activism’s opportunistic appropriation and invocation of “intersex”, I can deploy the fact of their existence when needed. I don’t even have to twist and distort these conditions to the same degree as genderists do with people who have DSDs. The point, however, is the same. If I am allowed to muddy the concept of “biological age” sufficiently, I can blunt, or even destroy its meaningful use as grounds for counterargument. Age is a spectrum; You’re As Young As You Feel. Or, more militantly, YAYAYF! NO DEBATE!

As an added, bonus parallel, just as trans activism supports (and is lead by) AGPs demanding to be treated as women, so too does trans-agism have its own fetishistic poster-children of adults (mostly, if not all males as far as I know) who demand to be treated as children and infants. They could come out of the shadows, like their much more fortunate and celebrated AGP bretheren, to partake in the benefits of Stunning Bravery. Why not? After all, anything else would be kink-shaming. If it’s allowed for one, why not the other?

In trans thought, while typical “feminine” appearance is often helpful, “passing” is irrelevent; it’s the inner feeling of “being” the other sex that counts. Some women have beards. Some have penises. Get over it. We’re supposed to ignore obviously male bodies that have bone structure, muscle mass and cardiovascular performance of bodies that have gone through male puberty. Why can’t we just as easily be convinced to ignore the obviously adult bodies on the playing field amongst children? We’ve already given up both safety and fairness for women; why not children too? We’ve gone far enough down the line of crushing the athletic dreams of girls for the sake of TiMs, why can’t we do the same for all children, so that Child-Identified Adults can take part in children’s sports? Why are they excluded? Age is just a number. Fair is fair. Right?

Of course, as in the trans activist version of this vision, as soon as more than one participant breaks the barrier on a given team, then it’s game over, and our brave, progressive Vanguard of the Right Side of History becomes just another also-ran, and has to find a new team to join in order to make it meaningfully worthwhile to participate. It’s no longer fun if you can’t win. Just ask the women and girls.

We’ve been told we must ignore our fine-tuned sense of who is male and who is female, to sacrifice fairness itself in the name of “inclusivity?” Why is that? Why do women bear this burden almost exclusively, often on pain of expulsion from their own teams and leagues, should they dare protest this injustice? Why is there no equivalent movement to allow adults into children’s sports in the name of inclusivity? Most of the arguments against doing so are exactly the same as those that have already been brushed aside in the name of trans inclusivity. Such a push would be no less unfair than what has already been done to women and girls. Why not let all parents have to face the heartache, helplessness, and rage that the parents of girls and young women who have been forced to accept boys and young men (and not so young in their sports, showers, and locker rooms have had to endure?

So why not let adults compete against children, just as boys and men have been unleashed against girls and women? The advantages of performance, courtesy of greater physical development, are the same in both cases. The manifest unfairness, as well as the risks to safety and safeguarding are exactly the same. Forget Rachel Dolezal, whose performance of “blackness” is somehow nothing like the TiM performance of “womanness.” I would love to hear an advocate for trans “inclusion” argue their way out of the conclusion that adults should be allowed to compete against children. They’ve already used most of the points I have to support their own position. Why can’t I enjoy the same thrill of being the advance guard of the next big rights movement. One is a thought experiment. The other is already happening. One would be considered an outrage, the other is considered the height of compassion and justice. Funny old world. Funny old people.

Remember. You’re As Young As You Feel. Let no one tell you otherwise.