Smash those traditional structures
Aaaand The Atlantic runs an article by freelance writer Maggie Mertens that announces Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense. It’s every bit as stupid as it sounds, and then some.
Though school sports are typically sex-segregated, a new generation of kids isn’t content to compete within traditional structures.
Ah yes, it’s just a matter of “traditional structures,” like women having to wear skirts. Thank god the new generation of kids has seen through it at last.
School sports are typically sex-segregated, and in America some of them have even come to be seen as either traditionally for boys or traditionally for girls: Think football, wrestling, field hockey, volleyball. However, it’s becoming more common for these lines to blur, especially as Gen Zers are more likely than members of previous generations to reject a strict gender binary altogether. Maintaining this binary in youth sports reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting—a notion that’s been challenged by scientists for years.
No it hasn’t. Sports scientists are having a good (albeit furious) laugh at that line.
Decades of research have shown that sex is far more complex than we may think. And though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still don’t know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential.
That’s not true either. Just ask Serena Williams.
In recent years, the question of who can play on what team has developed into a full-blown front in the culture war, based in large part on the fear that transgender girls will unfairly take over girls’ sports because of sweeping generalizations about biological athletic advantages.
Welllll, sweeping generalizations plus “Veronica Ivy” and “Lia” Thomas and a boatload of other men and boys cheating women and girls out of medals and prizes.
The insistence on separating sports teams strictly by sex is backwards, argues Michela Musto, an assistant sociology professor at the University of British Columbia who has studied the effect of the gender binary on students and young athletes. “Part of the reason why we have this belief that boys are inherently stronger than girls, and even the fact that we believe that gender is a binary, is because of sport itself, not the other way around,” she told me by phone.
Cargo cult physiology! What could go wrong?!
While the need to separate athletes by sex is still held firmly by many as a way to protect girls and women from harm, many people advocate for moving to a more integrated and inclusive approach.
Yeah let’s just blow off that whole physical thing and stop protecting girls and women from being smashed up by boys and men, and instead focus on being more incloooooooooosive [of boys and men].
Girls’/women’s wrestling has exploded in the past 25 years, hardly a sport where women don’t get much support – in the US, due to Title IX in large part. But the domination shown by the few high school age FTM crossovers is far more total than Thomas at UPenn.
“…Part of the reason why we have this belief that boys are inherently stronger than girls, and even the fact that we believe that gender is a binary, is because of sport itself, not the other way around…” — First of all it’s not a “belief,” it’s a verifiable fact that males are generally physically stronger, possibly “inherently,” but surely biologically, according to the laws of physics, but the idea that sports competitions decide who is male and who is female is completely absurd. Sports competitions don’t decide that sex is a “spectrum” either. Males who don’t do as well in sports as other males makes them no less male. It’s a binary according to sex, not sports competitions — people don’t compete to find out whether they are male of female (ffs). These sports fetishists sure give a lot of explanatory power to something that’s such an inconsequential part of the human experience.
The thing that’s very telling to me is that no one requires transgender “men” play on men’s teams. And they never volunteer to do so either. Because everyone know they are really women and would lose or get badly hurt. There are a few events that are mixed sex. Some swimming relays, with two men and two women. There, if a woman happens to swim against men, she invariably loses a lot of time. Equestrian events usually are but the horses are doing most of the work. Etc. If the writer gets her way, you can say goodbye to women’s sports. It will be all men at the top of the leaderboards, what they might choose to call themselves.
I’m continually amazed by how easily people who should know better can mentally put two distinct things into the same category when the language being used treats them the same. Think of Christian Nationalists constantly slipping between talking about morality and talking about religion so that the listener picks up their own confusion: you need God to be Good.
And here it’s sex divisions and sexist divisions. Girls playing hockey is jumbled together with trans-identified boys joining the girls’ track team. Transgender ideology is included in gender non-conformity. Think of one, think of the other. Sophistry.
So we simply reject what previous generations have known because a generation who isn’t old enough for brains to have fully developed have decided we’re wrong. That’s likely to go well, right?
And that seems to become a self-fulfilling thing. Because of that, a lot of girls are transing because they are GNC. If they aren’t, then they are being pushed to do so. GNC women throughout history are being declared trans men, no matter what they thought of themselves as.
Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds
BOOM – she just admitted the premise of the article is a lie.
Oops, and then lied about it. Sex is biological and not social, and it was not so long ago that TRAs admitted this much.
Boys and girls grow at the same rate to begin with, until girls hit puberty and the start of their growth spurt a couple of years before boys do. This creates a small window where girls are likely to be somewhat larger than boys of equal age, but that window closes when the boys hit their own growth spurt. These phases of growth are determined by hormone surges, and hormones are not know for paying attention to parental or societal guidance.
I don’t believe that about Gen Z’ers either, the ones I know don’t buy into the gender woo so easily. Maybe they’re referring to the trans cult trolls on twitter or the “be kind” SJW’s that have poisoned journalism on the interwebs and elsewhere with censorship. It’s like I’ve heard about ‘bad’ people generally, they don’t make up a big percentage of the population, but they disturb more shit and get more notoriety than ‘good’ people. Gen Z’ers aren’t any stupider than any other generations. Besides, how can anyone “reject” the gender binary completely? By not fitting neatly into a stereotype? I know plenty of Boomers who didn’t.
I agree with ikn @5, I think the trans cult is exploiting GNC young people, and I’d guess there are no more of them around now than there ever were, social acceptance aside.
Yes, I’m sure she consults with nuclear physicists for her plumbing problems, and hires a carpenter to fix her car. I just hope that when she needs help with her psychological issues, she chooses the right proctologist.
They may just be on to something here. I suggest that we try a little experiment, Abolish the male category in sports.
So anyone, regardless of gender or sex, can compete in the ‘major’ (formerly mens) division and be affirmed in whichever gender identity they prefer. Men, women, trans-women, trans-men, NBs etc., all competing in the same league.
Then let’s record how many teams/clubs hire females and in what proportion to the males.
Then let’s create a new division for all the people that don’t get places in the major one. I’m not a gambling man but I’m willing to bet that the second division will be a majority of females.
Also willing to bet that there won’t be a single trans-women in the major (majority male) division. I mean, it shouldn’t matter, right? As long as they are affirmed as their “true” gender it is just the taking part that matters.
100 years or more of data from all kinds of sports played all over the world show what the differences are between men and women in those sports. Though it was a nice touch for author to say that it isn’t just that all those women for 100 or more years have just been too lazy to train hard enough to the beat the men – they might just not have been “supported” enough. Is kinesiology no longer a field of study?
Amy @3
I keep saying this to anyone who will listen. It’s such a tell, but people don’t see it.
It’s one more elephant in the room that, never mind ignoring it, a lot of people just don’t SEE it.
Colin @9
This. I think men’s sports are already de facto open to anyone who can qualify, aren’t they? Let’s just make it explicit.
Alternate possibility: Keep male sports male, but INSIST that male sports include trans men, because inclusivity. If none qualify for a given team, tweak the game and its qualifications until they do. After all, Sport is a Human Right. What’s more important, winning or validating trans feelings?
Having been in the room for one of these discussions about trans women and safety, I can tell you the cognitive dissonance is jaw-dropping. In the space of a single meeting, one is asked to believe:
1. That there are no significant sex differences of speed, power, etc., that variance within the sexes is greater than the variance of type.
2. That therefore trans-women have the right to play sport as their chosen gender identity, as there are no externalities, even those with no medical or pharmaceutical reduction of their male characteristics.
3. Nonetheless, something about ‘transing’ produces a significant change that would render competing in Men’s categories both physically and mentally unsafe.
Something about “trans men” competing against males tripped something in my brain, and quick Google search for trans high school wrestling found this:
https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jun/11/viral-image-misrepresents-image-trans-high-school-/
where a trans-identified female was not permitted to wrestle in the boys division, despite wanting to.
I have no idea why a female would want to wrestle against a male; but I’m pretty sure that males shouldn’t be allowed to compete against females in sport.
Beggs was taking testosterone in order to build muscle mass as part of the transition – so was willing to compete as male. To Beggs’ credit, the desire to compete fairly appears to have been there.