I was the fastest girl in Connecticut. But transgender athletes made it unfair

The difference there is that female athletes do not choose to be female. A transgender person, according to your personal politics, may not choose to be transgender, but taking hormones for a sex transition therapy is a choice. Female athletes should not be punished with unfair competition for that choice of hormone therapy upon a biological male.

The biggest problem with that is probably that there aren't enough trans people at the high school athletics level to form a local league. For something like running it is maybe realistic, but for any team sports it's definitely not. Basketball feels like an example where a single dominant player could change the outcome of a league, but you would still need like 10 kids per school minimum to field a team.

I think most trans men want to compete with the men anyway though, in fact the controversy with the FtM wrestler crushing a bunch of women a few years ago was because his conservative state wouldn't let him compete with the men.

IMO the men's league should be open to anyone that can make it, so the issue is really just who should qualify for the women's league - which presumably only those that identify as women would even try to. I would think the vast majority of people agree that a trans woman that just started hormones yesterday should not be allowed to compete with women, so there would have to be some restriction beyond just identity. Figuring out the specifics is tough though.

In a simplistic sense.

It's unfair for both parties.

But one party made a choice and should therefore bear the unfair cost of their choice.

Exactly, we need three categories: M, W, ?. In ?, anything goes: Hormones, steroids, doping, etc. We can't let nature hold back sport.

How hard would it be to base the categories on basic biology, like a chromosome test? It seems the current rules are crafted specially to be bend.

It also raises the question of sport’s universality. Telling appart men and wen isn’t even controversial in most of the world. Will there be a split at the international level between countries that use sex and those that use gender for making the two categories?

> Male-to-female athletes likely have an advantage over female athletes

There's no evidence of this.

EDIT: If you think trans athletes have an advantage try finding some trans athlete who demonstrates this.

Now give that male puberty blockers for several years and test testosterone levels before allowing them to compete and see the times they get.

Or there are legitimate issues of transphobia surrounding this topic. This is used as a stick to beat trans people often ignoring the realities of the situation. How few trans individuals compete, how the ones that do don't generally operate at a higher level than statistically is likely. How the scientific evidence we have on the matter is limited and conflicted at best for people who are are on HRT. It additionally ignores how people on HRT often operate at lower levels than cis women do.

The issue is largely with youth not adults, yet every time the issue is brought out to attack adult trans people. Additionally this is somehow used to demonise trans people and that is then further used to limit access to puberty inhibitors which give trans youth more time to make decisions, and completely eliminate the actual problem with trans youth competing.

So the fact that this is the new favorite beating stick that transphobes use to attack trans people is probably why most people arguing this are called transphobes.

Flippant statements like yours then add to the issue because they try and dismiss the legitimate issues and nuances around this discussion and further lead to the voices of trans people being silenced, and the further attempts to restrict trans people's rights and access to health care.

I don't know about bulldozing stadiums, but I agree about moving on from old-fashioned binary thinking. People are just people and the labels and categories that we assign to them are changing. Sports should reflect this too.

actually, I cannot confirm this