In America, we love two things: misogyny and sports. But we can completely ignore that misogyny part, because it’s totally unimportant and the two are completely unrelated. Right?
Sure, there are a lot of things we respect about sports: the grit, the commitment and the records. But for a long time, men believed women were at such a biological disadvantage that they could not compete. It wasn’t until women insisted and fought for a place in male only spaces that they were even given a chance.
Separating people by their gender was a solution to keep play “fair.” Biologically, it’s true, women and men are different. Biological women have superior balance (due to a lower center of gravity), while bio-men have less fat naturally (they don’t grow breasts during puberty and have a different fat distribution in general). It was easier to just accept that men and women are too different, and separate them. But then along came … them.
A trans person trying to compete in a goddamn sport in my free America?
What is this? Communist Russia?
If I had a nickel for every trans-sport discussion I’ve provoked by being a trans person in a room with a student athlete, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t much but it’s weird it’s happened twice. But it gave me two chances to observe.
The first time was in high school, and I just let it happen. I didn’t give my thoughts and I let her speak, making note that it was probably best to ask the teacher to move my seat. But the second time, years later, I defended trans people. She initiated the conversation by saying how trans people were ruining swimming, and how deeply it affected her as a swimmer.
I was aware of the heat on this topic, but I’m not an athlete: I’m just trans. I couldn’t give a fuck about college sports. But the girl who started the debate and made it about sports was arguing like her D1 victory was stolen from her. Without ever acknowledging the trans woman’s name or her gender, the student spoke of her like she was a smear upon the mighty institution that was women’s collegiate swimming.
A quick Google search got me to Lia Thomas, a trans woman from Penn State, and yes, she won. A single race.
One victory is beyond anything I could do, but from the way people talked about her, I assumed she dominated.
Before Lia’s transition, she ranked around top ten in the state — nothing to scoff at, but far from dominant. Upon further inspection into her scores after her transition in her senior year, she didn’t place top three in any races other than the one that she took first in. She placed in the top ten, or below.
The insinuation is that Lia is using her biology as an advantage over “real” women. In reality, Lia’s body changed due to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and her swim time adjusted. Her height didn’t change. Her genitals didn’t change. But if she was so advantaged as a “biologically male” swimmer, why did her average swim time not remain the same pre and post HRT?
But other competitors took umbrage with Lia being biologically male. To them, an outsider was invading a safe space that women had to fight for their right for. Women who advocate for keeping women’s sports among “girls” believe trans women are not women. They believe it’s not “fair,” no matter how many hormones they take.
In life beyond sports, if cis women are held to a double standard, then trans women are held to a quadruple standard. Most trans athletes are driven out of sports due to scrutiny, or the isolation it brings (especially if your team joins a trans exclusion campaign). The reason a trans athlete competing is so rare is because they quit before they ever have to compete.
And for those who propose shuffling the “unsightly transes” into their own category, there was an “open” category for the Swimming World Cup swimming. It was canned due to lack of entrants.
This was a result of World Aquatics banning trans athletes from gender specific categories (if their transition began after puberty), but also opening the entry page for a measly two weeks. Please, try to contain your surprise that this failed miserably.
I’ll be the one to say it: the dern transgenders are not destroying the sanctity of sports. Football was never sanctimonious, nor was baseball or swimming. And don’t pretend like you give a damn about shuffleboard.
One fears what they don’t understand, and cis women specifically feel like their place in society is being taken away by trans women. They don’t realize that there is no replacement for a cis woman. Nor is there a replacement, or “fixing” of a trans woman. Once we can accept these differences, instead of dividing teams, maybe then America can acknowledge that this was never just a women’s issue or trans issue. It was always an issue with trans women, period.
