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My first reaction especially given other things I've heard about this book was Wtf is wrong with this lady?
The full quote is not quite as bad as I assumed:
Every time somebody brings up concerns over trans athletes I always think about these images of Katherine Switzer running the Boston Marathon:
I question why we have gender divisions in the first place, bc it's definitely not that society was ever concerned about fairness. The reason gender divisions were created in the first place, is the same reason we originally had racial based divisions until one day we didn't.
That guy wasn't physically assaulting Switzer and trying to stop her from becoming the first woman to run the Boston Marathon bc he was concerned she may be at an unfair disadvantage. He was trying to stop her bc back when the marathon first started somebody made "No girls allowed!" one of the rules, and this guy was uncomfortable with change. It seems pretty obvious now, that was just a dumb and unnecessary rule to begin with.
If this is all really about fairness like people claim, then maybe we should consider just nixing gender divisions entirely and moving to something like weight class or skill level divisions for competitive sports.
There are plenty of sports where gender divisions basically dont exist until you hit the college level. Hockey is a prime example. There are all-girls select youth teams, but all teams that arent exclusively for girls are open to anyone that can hang. There are plenty of girls that play competitively with boys through highschool hockey. There are plenty of women who play with men at the adult level in beer leagues and the like. But at the juniors, college, pro, and olympic levels they are gender divided.
Realistically at the highest levels of play some division does make sense, as that is where the highest level of physicality is allowed, and generally that is the reason why it can be less safe for women to be playing alongside men. As well as the fact that few women would be playing college or pro hockey if there were not gender divisions.
That said however, I see no reason why the odd woman that can hang in upper levels hockey shouldnt be allowed to play, nor would they be barred from doing so if they could. Likewise I can see how forcing womens upper leagues of the sport to accept cis men who cant hang in the upper levels of mens hockey would push women out of the sport. So it makes sense that they have exclusivity there.
Its one of those issues where I have no issue with gender divisions at the highest levels, in the interest of allowing a professional level of womens sport to exist, but at the same time trying to apply that same logic to youth sports completely falls apart. All youth sports should be just be open gendered competitions. If you see open-gendered hockey at the 12-14 year old level the girls are often 1-2ft taller than any of the boys and physically the more dominant group, and yet no one says the boys’ safety is at risk over it.
Not to mention that lost in all of the trans fear-mongering is the fact that when people take hormones their bodies significantly change. If someone born male starts hormone therapy to transition, their feet will shrink, they will lose muscle mass, so on and so forth. So at the end of the day they truly have zero physical advantages over cis women they would compete with in sport. Women’s leagues in the upper levels of a sport make sense, but it also makes perfect sense to allow transwomen to play with them. People dont seem to understand that male physicality is the result of a continual supply of hormones making you look as you are, not solely the result of past hormonally influenced growth. If you cut off the hormones making you a big strong man, you will no longer be big nor strong
There was even a woman goaltender for the Tampa Bay Lightning organization in the 1990s! She tried out for the team and was in minor league hockey for five years.
She did play in two preseason NHL games, in 1991 (allowing two goals on nine shots) and 1993.
I think divisions at the highest level are understandable, but does it absolutely have to be gender based division?
For contact sports like hockey, it would be interesting to see if you really went with a strict division by something like weight class how much would gender really change competitiveness?
Even in gender based divisions for noncontact sports like basketball, individual skill level can be more important than mass. Mugsy Bogues was a pretty rare case, but he was 5'3" and holding his own with guys that were well over 6' tall.
Maybe divisions with some combination of weight and skill level? Or some other factor? Idk I feel like we'll never really know until somebody is willing to try.
Generally they are gendered based on physical purposes, but what youre saying makes some sense yeah. In hockey, its gendered both because men play a more physical game and because historically (at least until more recently) women havent had equal access to the sport at the youth level. So both physicality and skill are lacking among women at the pro level. If you forced a women’s league to be open to cismen then cismen would push out all of the women, as they have had more time to develop their skill. The end result would be that many women wouldnt be able to hang well enough to compete with men just as they cannot compete on a mens olympic or pro team. So having a womens exclusive league makes sense. But there also is no rational reason to bar transwomen from competing, since they are also women.
Basketball is the same, and is also a contact sport really. In womens ball, the three point line is shallower than it is in mens basketball because of physicality differences. Mens basketball is also often played more physical and less technical. Womens sports in general often lean on technical skill over physical dominance, which personally I find more interesting to watch. But yeah, there is no reason to bar women from competing with women at high levels of sport just because some of those women might have been born male
The best way for us to move towards having open classes of as much of all sports as is possible would be to make youth sports open-gendered competition, so that any given sport ultimately moves towards neutral rules and styles of play. No different three point lines, etc. And allow women to develop technical skills that can work around their opponents physical advantages the same way that small men are able to find ways to do it in pro mens sports. But that takes time to develop, we cant just drop the rules without that development and expect women not to get clobbered by men when they arent used to competing with men under mens rules and styles of play. Equal access to sport and development is crucial to creating the kind of world that youre talking about, and were pretty far from that
The NFL already allows women. But I don't think there are any female players, due to physical differences and lack of developmental leagues, like you mentioned.
I think they've had female referees, though.
Men have the advantage. I mean high school boys out compete woman Olympians. Sorry but testosterone is a hell of a drug.
Bc testosterone helps build secondary sex characteristics like muscle and bone mass. Other than that it's not some kind of secret formula for success.
If you had a male and female matched pound for pound for muscle and skill level why would testosterone matter?