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A Mystery For the Ages: Why Do Women Play in Separate Sports Leagues From Men?

There are times when I think I must be going crazy. But I'm not. It really is other people most of the time. Consider this piece at the Monkey Cage that uses an Arkansas transgender bill as a springboard to ask a broader question:

But why does the U.S. segregate sports — or administer healthcare — by sex in the first place? In my research and consulting work, I examine how gender options are presented to Americans on forms and in policies, and how this “choice architecture” — a term taken from behavioral economics — nudges us to think about our own and others’ gender in particular ways.

Huh. The reason for segregating sports by sex seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe I'm missing something. Let's keep an open mind:

Title IX calls for gender integration in classrooms but allows sex segregation in sports. Most people, including progressives and conservatives, celebrate Title IX for increasing opportunities for girls and women in sports. But as political scientist Elizabeth Sharrow points out, neither side of the political aisle has acknowledged the role that “separate but equal” sports plays in “stabilizing gender hierarchies” and reinforcing stereotypes that harm not just transgender and non-binary people, but cisgender girls and women, too. In the near term, Sharrow proposes opening men’s athletic programs to women while keeping women’s teams closed to cisgender men. Over the longer term, she proposes organizing sports by weight class, body size, or participant skill level rather than gender. This might better level the playing field and reveal sports as a way to challenge gender stereotypes instead of presenting them as natural.

This sounds like it was written by someone who has never participated in any sporting activity at all. If we organized sports by weight class, body size, or skill level, no woman would ever play any sport again¹ at anything remotely near the top level. It would spell the end of the WNBA, the LPGA, the WTA, and every other professional women's sports league. Ditto for sports at the college level, and even for most of them at the high school level.

This is the kind of thing that makes normal people think that progressives are completely out of touch with reality. Where the hell does it come from?

¹There are one or two exceptions, but that's all.

155 thoughts on “A Mystery For the Ages: Why Do Women Play in Separate Sports Leagues From Men?

  1. ronp

    Do you think a pro team composed of half men and half women could not compete against another similar team? Or given the modern gender conceptions equivalent trans people on each side.

    There is no reason it could not work. It is all cultural.

    1. Midgard

      So water down the product and destroy people's lives??? That isn't equality by nature, but the liberal creed.

      1. bebopman

        I don’t necessarily back the idea, but it doesn’t necessarily water down the product. Main goal is entertainment. Can a mixed team be entertaining? Sure.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          Men who look like Bill Swerski's Sports Guys in hot pants might make roller derby entertaining.

          Might.

      2. humanchild66

        It's true! Adding men to the US Women's Soccer Team would totally water it down. Also, the dudes would take a significant pay cut.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          Christian Pulisic will just need to cap his expenditures to the Trump Presidential Library Building Fund.

    2. lawnorder

      The problem with that concept is that you are simply substituting quotas for segregation. "Making the team" in any case where there are more people wanting to play than there are places on the team is usually a matter of merit; the best players make the team, the others don't. The only way to get a team that is half male and half female is to reserve half the places on the team for females. So instead of having separate women's and men's teams, you have mixed teams with two rosters, the men's roster and the women's roster. I don't see that as an improvement.

      1. FMias

        Indeed, a weird quote system - and for contact sports.... all kinds of practical and pragmatic issues (American Football... oh boy. Basktetball... problematic but perhaps doable although the sex related issues that will arise...).

        A knee-jerked mess really, and driven apparently by non-sports playing Lefty academic nerds (now I am a non-sports playing nerd myself) with their heads in theory castles.

    3. FMias

      So ... instread of having a team competing on physical capacity you have a odd-ball state mandated gender division 50-50 within the team.

      I am not a sports fan but... well no wonder the Cultural Left is such a millstone around the necks of the Left in general.

      1. 7g6sd2fqz4

        does it matter to you that the 50-50 thing is a device that is completely of your own making? generally we don’t make shit up when arguing a position.

        1. memyselfandi

          They already do this in tennis and curling as well as the men's and women's event. Except it is not. Mixed doubles in tennis and mixed teams in curling already do this.

    4. Atticus

      Are you suggesting there be some mandate that the teams consist of half men and half women? As opposed to the best players making the team?

    5. skeptonomist

      There are actually mixed competitions in some sports, which are a lot of fun. But participants still have to be classified as male or female, and how this is done is what the debate is all about. Why wouldn't some teams recruit a lot of trans athletes to be "females"?

      1. Atticus

        If they are unsure, tell them to pull down their pants and I'll tell them.

        Yes, recreational co-ed sports are fun. I played for many years on a co-ed softball team and kickball team. It was just for fun. There aren't co-ed competitive teams.

        1. skeptonomist

          I am referring mainly to mixed relays which are held at high levels in track running, cycling and cross-country skiing (that I know of). There is no illusion that females are on the same level as males.

      2. Crissa

        Trans men are men and trans women are women. They exist inside the realm of cisgender abilities as well. None occur outside those bounds.

        So not only couldn't you, it's insulting.

        1. Atticus

          A woman that dresses up like a man is still a woman. A man that dresses up like a man is still a man. They just suffer from mental illness.

    6. pjcamp1905

      So there's no biology, only culture.

      This is what makes progressives sound like idiots. That's apt to happen if you're give to saying idiotic things.

  2. kenalovell

    I find it all exhaustingly trivial. People should play games however they want. Once they become professional entertainments, which in America apparenty extends even to high school sports, I no longer care what they do. The influence of drugs, money and corruption spoiled any enjoyment I once gained from them many years ago.

    1. Special Newb

      The thing is it matters from the start. It's called the Relative Age Effect. And it matters for more than sports. Academia and Politics are also effected.

  3. limitholdemblog

    Where the hell does it come from?

    It comes from a fear that some trans activists have that if any concession is made that in some narrow realm, there is a difference recognized between a cis woman and a trans woman, that somehow that will destroy the entire edifice of trans rights and that people will think that trans women aren't actually women.

    A parallel argument that also gets made is that there's no such thing as "biological sex". I don't use that term- I say "assigned sex at birth", because I think that is more precise. But I don't mean that people argue you should use a different term- I mean specifically that people argue there is no such thing as biological sex at all, usually because a small percentage of people are born Intersex or because of some claim (that is hotly disputed among scientists and researchers) that trans women's brains are closer to cis women's brains than they are to cis men's, and trans men's brains are closer to cis men's brains than they are to cis women's.

    All of these arguments are about not giving ground. And to be fair, and I will capitalize this so I am absolutely clear- TRANS PEOPLE HAVE FACED A TON OF OPPRESSION SO IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE WHY THEY DON'T WANT THERE TO BE ANY BACKSLIDING ON THE ISSUE OF WHAT GENDER THEY ARE.

    Nonetheless, the problem is that in reality there are a few biological sex differences, this is one of them, and at the very least if you want trans women to compete with cis women in elite sports, you have to do what just about every professional league and the Olympics do and have a waiting period and some rules for taking hormones. (It doesn't matter so much at the high school and non-elite college levels because those competitions are as much about participation as they are about results.)

    So the reality is trans women are women, but they are somewhat different from cis women in a few narrow ways, and athletics is one of them. That's not what trans activists want to hear, and it scares them, so they push arguments like this.

    (There is also another possible reason why activists might dislike the notion that there are narrow situations where a trans woman is not equivalent to a cis woman, based on highly controversial theories from sexologists about different reasons why different people develop gender dysphoria and transition. But that explanation is both highly controversial and probably unnecessary to explain why activists take the position they do on women's sports.)

      1. FMias

        Indeed, for say 99% of the population. For around 1 odd percent it's ambiguous. It's really quite a tyranny of a tiny minority to impose that exception as a broad language usage, and can only end up generating backlash in the end.

      2. skeptonomist

        Mistakes can be made and "observation" is not unambiguous. Caster Semenya has XY chromosomes and male gonads which give her a high level of testosterone, and testosterone is mainly what causes people to have better sports performance. Apparently because of incomplete or abnormal development of external genitalia she was classified as female at birth. Observation of her chromosomes would have led to a different classification or assignment, and possibly surgical intervention which might have resulted in less trouble all around.

        https://www.scribd.com/document/408274513/Media-Release-Semenya-ASA-IAAF-Decision

        1. jte21

          I think she is technically intersex -- having characteristics, biologically and anatomically, of both sexes -- but as far as I know, Semena has never identified gender-wise as anything but female, so she wasn't misassigned at birth or anything.

          Her's is a complicated case -- that of a woman who, due to a genetic accident, also has the testosterone load of a man. So when it comes to high-level sports, is gender in your chromosomes? Your personal feelings? Your hormone levels? Some combination of the three?

        2. lawnorder

          Observers can make errors; that doesn't mean that the observations become "assignments", it just means the observation process is not perfect. The error rate in observing the sex of human babies is very low.

      3. Crissa

        A newborn doesn't have a gender. They have expressed sexual characteristics which are then assigned a gender.

        Please don't be a bigot.

    1. FMias

      A few? There are quite a range of biological sex differences between male and female right down to fundamental skeletal structure driven by birthing needs that have real profound effect on bio-mechanical efficiency (in ways quite relevant to sports).

      And outside humans where we pile on cultural obsessions, such mammalian biology is not controversial for God's sake.

      It's rather clear the Trans activists have gone well beyond a reasonable position, well beyond.

      1. limitholdemblog

        There are only a few that have any relevance to public policy. And most of the time it's better to ignore sex differences because we don't want to reify discrimination.

      2. wvng

        There are many physical, physiological, skeletal differences between men and women, that impact many aspects of their lives. For example, a doctor needs to know if someone is a biological male or biological female in order to properly treat them.

  4. brn2bthewild1

    Bad answer, Kevin.

    The author may or may not know all there is about sports, but you sure as hell don't. A lot of things we "knew" about the limits of women's fitness and ability have been debunked over the years.

    1. Midgard

      Lol, keep on trying. Ever watch men play basketball vs women??? The real question is why trans exist in the first place. It's clearly a mental disease. classical Marxism hates both homo's and Trans. Blames capitalism for turning people into ltbg stuff.

      1. bebopman

        “ Ever watch men play basketball vs women??? “

        Yeah. Women are better shooters from outside. I like both types of basketball (my fave sport) for different reasons.

        1. Atticus

          At no level, high school, college, professional, would a woman's team beat a men's team. You're being ridiculous.

        2. ey81

          The NBA has a higher three point percentage than the WNBA, which calls the assertion about outside shooting skill into question.

          1. bebopman

            Eh. Shooter didn’t say “pros”. When I watch/play with former high school stars in pickup games—men and women on same team— men usually can’t shoot worth jack from outside. Women still retain perfect form. I like to think of the women as having a deeper bench.

      2. realrobmac

        See this is what this stupid reality-denying nonsense about men's vs. women's athletic abilities gets you. Someone like Midgard gets to accurately refute some nonsense and then use that in support of his odious anti-trans opinion.

    2. limitholdemblog

      That's a weird statement. Kevin answered the reason women play in separate sports leagues. It's definitely true that the revolution spurred both by Title IX here in the United States and by the growth in international competitions has narrowed the gap somewhat- if you compare the level of play at the recent NCAA Women's Final Four to the AIAW title games in the 1970's, it's night and day. Women have access to better facilities, better training, etc., than they have ever had before, and it has improved things a lot.

      But still- the world record in the men's 100 meters is 9.58; the world record in the women's 100 meters is 10.49. And that 10.49 was set 33 years ago, nobody has come close to it since, and the person who set it died young of suspicious circumstances and is widely suspected of having used PED's.

      The world record in the men's 800 meters is 1:40.91; the women's record is 1:53.28, and again, that is a very old record set by an East German suspected of doping.

      Or how about jumping? The world record in the men's high jump is 8'0 1/4"; the world record in the women's high jump is 6'10 1/4".

      Women are best at endurance sports, but the women's marathon record is 12 minutes slower than the men's record.

      Similar things are true in other sports. When the Williams sisters played tennis against the number 200 man in the world, they were easily beaten.

      And this is why we segregate men's and women's sports. At the non-elite level, you can argue maybe it doesn't matter all that much because it's really about participation. But at the elite level, the advances in women's fitness have not come close to closing the gap. If you want women to be able to compete at an elite level at all, you have to have a women's division and any competition from trans women has to be after hormones and a waiting period.

      1. chuchundra

        The Women's Olympic 100m record is 10.49 seconds. The men's Olympic qualifying time in 2016 was 10.16 seconds. In other words, the best woman runner of all time on her best day ever was still over three tenths of a second too slow to even be allowed to compete in the men's race.

        1. limitholdemblog

          Actually the Olympic record is 10.62. Flo-jo set her World Record of 10.49 in the Trials in Indianapolis.

      2. 7g6sd2fqz4

        “But at the elite level, the advances in women's fitness have not come close to closing the gap.”

        so let’s just pack it up then, right?

    3. FMias

      Such as specifically?
      Things known that is, debunked relative to comparative bio-mechanics between male and females in the human species?

    4. Daniel Berger

      You do realize that UConn's women's BB team was dominant for many years because they trained against men. Those men weren't the UConn men's BB team. They were the rejects from the men's team.

      Still good enough to give the UConn women a serious advantage when playing other women. This is now apparently standard practice for elite women's BB programs.

      1. JimFive

        I think that I take a different lesson from that than you are implying. Perhaps skill improvement is based on the quality of the competition and training. The performance of women's basketball in your example improved due to an increase in the difficulty they faced.

        Can women college BB players improve on the individual level to become competitive enough with men to legitimize coed teams? I don't know. If it is possible it needs to start with U10 youth leagues and probably would take at least 20 years to come close.

        1. limitholdemblog

          It's not just about individuals (although the gap in elites is still yawning).

          Even a situation like we have in sled dog racing, where a couple of exceptional females have beaten the men but few women are competitive, would destroy everything Title IX accomplished and be horrible for feminism and gender equality.

          We need separate women's sports because of differences on average as well as at the elite level. A few trans kids don't threaten this, but trying to pretend we can raise the class of women to where they are competitive with men, just so we don't have to tell trans women "you are women, but are a bit different from cis women", would be a disaster for public policy.

          1. 7g6sd2fqz4

            there’s an early american position that this argument mirrors, but for some reason i just can’t place it..........

  5. Brett

    If we organized sports by weight class, body size, or skill level, no woman would ever play any sport again¹ at anything remotely near the top level.

    I wouldn't go that far, but there are definitely sports where they'd be nowhere near the top echelon of contestants. The fastest 100 meter sprint by a woman isn't even in the top 20 of men's fastest 100 meter sprints. Football and Rugby would be challenging too, and apparently golf as well. Not sure on basketball - there are tall women, and it's not like you need a ton of upper body strength just to do a dunk or take a shot.

    1. Atticus

      No woman would make a college or professional team if they were open to women. There's just no way. This is such an idiotic conversation. And KD is absolutely correct that it's things like this that make normal people realize progressives are totally out of touch with reality.

    2. Utek

      Boxing is already organized by weight. I say let's let female boxers get in the ring with male boxers of equal weight and see what happens. After the first couple of murders I think people would finally shut up on the subject of gender equality in sports.

      1. lawnorder

        It's not necessary for anyone to get hurt. Weightlifters, not surprisingly, are organized by weight classes. Let's see how women compare to men of the same weight at lifting.

    1. chuchundra

      If she played on the Men's circuit, she'd be lucky to ever qualify.

      https://www.marca.com/en/more-sports/2017/06/27/595296da468aeb99218b464c.html

      At the height of the Williams boom in 1998, an unofficial game took place in Australia after Serena and Venus claimed that no male player outside the top 200 could beat them.

      Up stepped a German known as Karsten Braasch who was ranked 203rd in the world and after first beating Serena 6-1, he then disposed of Venus 6-2.

      "I didn't know it would be that difficult. I played shots that would have been winners on the women's circuit and he got to them very easily," said Serena.

      1. 7g6sd2fqz4

        why does every men’s rights chud bring up this friendly match? all of the participants say they weren’t playing for real.

        1. chuchundra

          Serena Williams is arguably the best woman tennis player of all time and one an extremely driven and competitive athlete. Not to mention that the Williams sisters wanted this match to prove a point.

          If you believe she allowed herself to get beaten by a nobody player in because "she wasn't playing for real" I have a nice bridge I'd like to sell you.

  6. Doctor Jay

    I have seen, and recently, a fair number of (cis) women athletes who think competing with whomever wants to identify as a woman is fine. They make the point that dealing with opponents who are bigger/stronger/faster/whatever is always part of the landscape.

    I kind of think maybe their voices could be louder, and mine not so loud.

    AND, we could work on developing sports that men and women play together. I've done coed softball for instance.

    1. limitholdemblog

      I suspect this is a matter of political alliance and even perhaps a certain amount of posturing. Everyone assumes (and I actually think correctly) that there aren't going to be scenarios where significant numbers of cis men purport to transition to compete in and win at women's sports, and that nobody who is actually elite in men's sports is going to transition and compete against women. (Nobody thinks that the person now known as Caitlyn Jenner would have wanted to transition and win the women's pentathlon in the 1976 Olympics, for instance.)

      But if a scenario like that really did happen, I suspect those folks might say something different. I.e., let's say some country announced that it is filling its national women's soccer team with recently transitioned, highly athletic trans women- I highly doubt that Megan Rapinoe would actually respond to THAT by saying it's just fine, bring them on.

      My point isn't that this would ever happen. Indeed, I highly doubt it would. I am simply saying that some of the cis women athletes taking this position are doing so to be good allies to trans women (a very admirable stance) while also assuming it won't actually pose a problem for them.

      1. Atticus

        If the Olympcis ever said men could compete on women's teams, I think every country should just fill their women's team with men. Give the progressives what they want.

    2. ey81

      Every co-ed softball league I know is either (i) not terribly competitive or (ii) imposes minimum quotas for female players. Or both.

  7. akapneogy

    There is a large cultural component to gender differentiation. All of us being products of the extant culture, we are in no position to determine exactly how large this component is. We only need to look back a few decades and see how women were considered incapable of matching men intellectually even as the Noethers and Meitners were proving them conclusively wrong (without meaning to do so at all). In sports today it can be safely said that women can easily best men in long distance swimming without even trying. Who knows in how many sports they could prove their superiority if they tried and trained appropriately.

    1. limitholdemblog

      Kevin mentioned there is a small handful of sports, and there are. Sled dog racing is one of them- women have won several Iditarods. Jockeys is another- female jockeys have won Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup races. A third is auto racing- Danica Patrick was very competitive with male drivers, and there are several younger women drivers in the pipeline.

      But that's a far cry from asking "why do we segregate women's sports?" and not knowing the answer.

      1. lawnorder

        It's really disputable if either jockeys or race car drivers are athletes. It's the horse or the car that actually does the work.

        1. limitholdemblog

          Jockeys are athletes by any definition. You should have seen how stacked Laffit Pincay was. You need physical strength to control a horse at speed.

          Auto racing drivers are a more debatable case, but certainly driving long distances at high speeds is physically taxing.

    2. tribecan

      The men’s world record in the 1500 meter freestyle is 14:31.02. The women’s record, set by the greatest female distance freestyler and maybe the greatest female swimmer of all time, Katie Ledecky, is 15:20.42, over 49 seconds slower. Thousands of men are faster than her. So I’m not quite sure what you mean when you say that women can easily beat men in long distance swimming.

      1. Atticus

        They're not saying anything close to logical. These people on living on different planets if they think women can compete against men in any sport requiring speed and strength.

        1. 7g6sd2fqz4

          arguing from what has happened so far—and ignoring all context, to boot—seems like a really strange position given the advances of women’s sport over the last 20 years.

          1. Atticus

            What are you talking about? There haven't been women playing against men for the last 20 years. My daughter is a good lacrosse player and plays on a great travel team. They're #2 in Florida. They would get destroyed playing against a boys team. It wouldn't even be close. Not that we'd let the girls play anyway since it wouldn't be safe.

          2. Solar

            "given the advances of women’s sport over the last 20 years."

            The issue is that the advancements have also taken place on the men's sports. Women athletes today are in general stronger and faster than women athletes from the past, but the same is true for men athletes and that is the sticking issue. That with the improvements on both sides, for sports that rely heavily or primarily on strength, speed, and endurance (which is most of them), there really isn't possible to have a fair competition between the two without putting some severe handicaps on the men competing.

  8. Cressida

    oh lord, thank you so much. This issue is completely nuts. Republican lawmakers have disingenuously seized on it, but their bad motivation doesn't mean the underlying issue isn't a problem. Of course sports should be segregated by sex. You're 100% correct - never back down.

      1. 7g6sd2fqz4

        the fuck is “social nationalism”? you’re just inverting progressive talking points and pretending that makes you smart.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          Communism for white people who listen exclusively to contemporary country radio, the Joe Rogan POGBLASGK, & InfoWars, e.g. Josh Hawley's Qaeda.

        2. Krowe

          Midgard uses different definitions of "socialism", "nationalism", "Zionism" than what everyone else on the planet uses. That explains the posts we see here.

          1. galanx

            Different to what we use now. They were quite popular in Germany 1932-1945.
            When Shootie/Midgard says 'social nationalism' just reverse the two words.

  9. bebopman

    This brings up something I have long and often (really) thought about. What if sports had been invented by women? Almost all sports were invented by men to measure those attributes that are important to men. Women in most sports are, essentially, being measured by men’s standards. How would sports be different if they measured more of the attributes where women excel?

    .... in any case, women’s sports are very entertaining, which is all that matters. I’d rather see the USA women’s soccer team win another World Cup or Olympic gold medal than watch the men fail to even qualify (again) for anything any old day.

  10. 7g6sd2fqz4

    there are 8th grade girls that can dunk now. is it within the realm of possibility that women haven’t performed at near the same level historically because sports and explosive physical activity isn’t emphasized in young girls?

      1. 7g6sd2fqz4

        great, i’m glad we cleared that up. i’m sure there’s no other group of people that has exceeded the expectations of other ostensibly pragmatic figures like yourself.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Not unlike greatest NBA player of all-time, Tamir "Jewish Jordan" Goodman.

      Eighth grade excellence always leads to adult achievement.

      1. 7g6sd2fqz4

        oh man, that’s a great point. i suppose a counter point would uh *checks notes* lebron fucking james?

      2. 7g6sd2fqz4

        oh man, that’s a great point. i suppose a counter point would uh *checks notes* lebron fucking james?

        to the extent that your comment has anything at all to do with this discussion anyway.

    2. Daniel Berger

      There are quite enough elite college women who can also dunk.

      That doesn't mean that they'd get anywhere if you threw them into the elite men's shark tank that is March Madness.

      As for 8th grade, girls get their growth and strength earlier than boys, on average.

      Look, there are a LOT of individual women who could run rings around me (when I was young and in good condition) or my son (who is young and in very good condition, a former college track athlete in D2). That doesn't mean that they'd be competitive in, say, the men's Olympic trials.

  11. azumbrunn

    The proposal to sort competitors by weight, body size (ain't that the same as "weight"?) or skill level is clearly from the ivory tower. Practical difficulties abound, depending on which sport is in question: Contact sports (inappropriate touching) have been mentioned. How about judging in sports like gymnastics or figure skating? Male and female bodies look different, making judging even harder than it already is. Etc. etc.

    Anyway, sorting by body size would automatically lead to predominantly male and predominantly female groups, defeating the poor woman's intentions.

    Having said all this: Kevin's reaction is hilariously hyperbolic. There are sports where gender mixing would be no problem at all: golf comes to mind, shooting (rifle, pistol, bow). Let's never forget that not long ago the "sports" of politics or management was considered unachievable for women. Turns out that women outperform men in those disciplines.

    1. limitholdemblog

      Gymnastics is actually a pretty good example because it shows it works the other way too. How many late onset gender dysphoric trans women/girls are going to compete in the balance beam? That's right, none! They can't! Their bodies developed differently pre-transition!

      Which is exactly why we have to have rules for transitioners in elite sports....

    2. LostPorch

      Gender mixing in golf and shooting seems to show some widely disparate inherent differences based on a quick perusal of average/record drive distances and whatever the hell Olympic shooting scoring is based on.

      Limitholdemblog's comments throughout this thread have been well thought out and compassionate, but positing sled dog races, horseracing and motor sports as good examples where women can compete with men as a counter to the "inherent disparate abilities" argument seems flawed for obvious reasons.

      The last female athlete who I remember legitimately was beating the top male athletes in their sport was Jean Balukas.

      1. limitholdemblog

        Julie Krone won the Belmont, and Rosie Nepravnik won the Breeders' Cup Distaff.

        Danica Patrick won an IndyCar race.

        Libby Riddles and Susan Butcher won the Iditarod, multiple times.

        It's not a counter to the inherent differences argument; it simply points out the same thing Kevin did, that there are a handful of sports where the balance of attributes required allows some exceptional cis women to compete with cis men at an elite level. They are the exception, not the rule.

  12. Summerof73

    At some point, the best medicine is to allow people to implement their ideas. Trump winning killed Obamacare repeal precisely because Republicans were bullshitting and faced with victory had to either stop talking about it or do something. They did nothing and this fell completely out of the media narrative.

    But maybe Kevin is worried that it might work. Let's start with some baby steps. What's Ivy League sports for if not bringing social justice to the world?

    1. limitholdemblog

      FWIW we have had the baby steps. Many high school leagues have allowed trans girls.
      A few with late onset dysphoria who were pretty masculine looking and more muscular than the cis girls have won, but overall, the world has not ended.

      I think the big check here is that nobody transitions to win athletic contests. But if that changed, it would be grossly unpopular.

  13. Goosedat

    Most 'sports' were invented by either boys or men for boys and men to play. Boys and men are going to have an advantage over women because most sports were designed for the male gender. There are some exceptions. Tennis was developed for both sexes and women's professional tennis is as compelling to watch as men's. Figure skating, as it is practiced today, was developed by Sonia Henie and women are the primary focus of the public's attention in this sport.

    The problem women have is they are playing games developed for their opposite sex. Girls play house and with dolls, which mimics their parent role models rather than play games like boys. Girls have been made to to play field hockey rather than have sports developed for their unique physiques. Women are going to have to develop their own sports like men did if they want them to become professions as popular and as lucrative as figure skating.

      1. Goosedat

        Watching women play field hockey, bent over while chasing a ball to hit with a short stick, may have been developed specifically by men as a form of sexist ridicule.

    1. Solar

      "Tennis was developed for both sexes and women's professional tennis is as compelling to watch as men's. Figure skating, as it is practiced today, was developed by Sonia Henie and women are the primary focus of the public's attention in this sport."

      You are absolutely correct here, but then what you are describing here is the public interest in the particular sport or the level of compelling entertainment it provides, not the actual level of competition from a physical point of view, which is the issue discussed.

      For example, even though figure skating is vastly more popular on the women's side. For women, a solid and reliable triple axel is a must to have a chance at being the best, while for men it is the quad jump. For tennis, the fastest serve speeds on the women's side wouldn't even be considered middle of the pack compared to the men.

  14. Mike Masinter

    Organizing sports by weight class or body size would violate Title IX by eliminating virtually all opportunities for girls to participate equally in competitive school sponsored sports save, perhaps, for the very smallest weight and size classifications in which no boys and few girls can be found. Sexual dimorphism is real, and it preceded and continues to exist independently from linguistic debates.

  15. humanchild66

    I think it is awesome that no one drew attention to the fact that Kevin contrasted "progressives" with "normal people".

    Personally, I thought that was funny (Team Normal, here).

  16. jte21

    Organizing teams by size/skill or whatever would virtually completely eliminate the chance for all but a minute fraction of women to ever demonstrate excellence in sport. Take basketball -- let's say you make a squad out of anyone over 6-6, 200 lbs. and who can perform a certain set of drills at a certain speed/level. You'll have a few men but a vanishingly small number of women who meet those benchmarks. That's the A-Team. The B-Team, which is everyone under 6-6 who can do the drills under X seconds, will attract some more women who may be phenomenal basketball players, but never get a chance to compete at a top level because all those slots will be taken up by men or by that 1 in a 1000 woman who meets those metrics.

    The culture war posturing bullshit over trans atheletes, particularly kids, is so stupid and cruel. How many trans kids are really trying to participate in high level athletics with opposite-sex teams across the country? Five? How about districts just handle it one case at a time and do their best to do what's right for the student athlete. It's not that hard. They eventually graduate.

    1. Solar

      "The culture war posturing bullshit over trans atheletes, particularly kids, is so stupid and cruel. How many trans kids are really trying to participate in high level athletics with opposite-sex teams across the country? Five? How about districts just handle it one case at a time and do their best to do what's right for the student athlete. It's not that hard. They eventually graduate."

      Yes. I think this is similar to the bathroom fears stoked by the right. They assume people will intentionally call themselves trans to take advantage/perv on girls in the bathrooms instead of people just wanting to pee in a safe space. Here the assumption is that men will intentionally transition in order to dominate women's sports.

  17. realrobmac

    I think maybe our society places way too much emphasis on competitive sports. Of all the things pursue and try to become excellent at, sports is pretty much the only one where women cannot compete with men. This is not to say, obviously, that all men are better at all sports than all women. But men have certain biological advantages in strength, size, and speed that translate to them being better at sports, by and large, than women. That may not be fair but it's reality and denying it just makes certain overly liberal folk look like fools.

    Women can easily compete with men in any field of endeavor that actually matters. Yes, sexists used to say women could not do this or that. They were wrong. But people who say women will eventually be able to compete directly with men in sports are smoking something. If it were going to happen it would have already happened. But who cares? Really this is pretty much the least important question you could argue about. People enjoy women's sports. If those sports allowed men to compete in them, except for maybe figure skating and gymnastics, men would quickly take them over. And if pros could play in college football then college football would be pro football.

    Should trans women be allowed to compete in women's sports? I think anyone who pretends that the answer is obvious is not really thinking things through. The reason we have women's sports is because women can't compete in men's sports. Allowing trans women into women's sports is nice and inclusive but I can see the argument that trans women have a biological advantage similar to the one men would have. Also I think it's worth noting that no one is asking whether trans men should be allowed to compete in men's sports, which gives the entire argument away if you think about it.

  18. Austin

    One journalist in a country of 330m writes a well-intentioned but misguided article and practically everyone takes it as an opportunity to punch down at her.

    If you require nobody in your political party to ever say or do something stupid, your political coalition is going to be pretty small.

    Also Kevin, “progressives” are “normal people” too. They aren’t some kind of alien race living among us. You might try remembering that, as you claim to be a Democrat yourself.

    1. limitholdemblog

      It's not just one journalist. Questioning the need for separate spaces based on assigned sex at birth is a pretty central project of trans activists (for reasons I explained above, as well as perhaps some other reasons as well), and they write about this a lot. This may have just been the first such argument Kevin saw.

      1. wvng

        More fundamentally, questioning the reality and permanence of biological sex has become a central tenet of trans activism. The "assigned sex at birth" is the sex you are, even if your body has been chemically and surgically sculpted to make secondary sexual characteristics line up somewhat better with the other sex. By saying this I will be accused of not validating and of doing violence.

        1. Crissa

          Your statements are flatly incorrect.

          Sex is not straight up binary, but a cloud of features which may or may not be present in differing amounts.

          You insitence of this differing ability... is also not true. Two years after transition, no trans person scores outside their sex for physical ability.

          1. GenXer

            Except this is not true.

            Sex is binary, apart from the 0.01% of the population that has genetic abnormalities.

            And your statement about performance after transition is flatly false. Studies have found that transitioning from female to male and taking hormones has almost zero impact on muscle strength and stamina in those athletes.

          2. GenXer

            Wish we could edit....my comment should say

            "Studies have found that transitioning from male to female and taking hormones has almost zero impact on muscle strength and stamina in those athletes."

    2. Solar

      "as you claim to be a Democrat yourself."

      He is, but he is also a very right leaning one in some of his views.

  19. LostPorch

    Its also worth separating the scenarios for trans athletes in the Olympics/very highest level from the scenarios for HS/Collegiate.

    Talking only about the latter, if we're interested in inclusion, we let trans athletes play in any division they want. If we're interested in fairness, I can see the case for restrictions based on time on a hormone regimen.

    This elides the elephant in the room. People who protest trans athletes on the ground of non-fairness are completely willing to ignore more significant factors affecting performance differences - access to coaching/facilities/strength and training assistance/ nutrition coaching/etc. (ie, money inequity).

  20. wvng

    Kevin is correct, and everyone who is arguing that there are not fundamental physical and physiological differences between biological males and biological females (what used to be called men and women) is too woke by far, and sadly that is far too many in "my tribe." Transitioning in no way fundamentally changes those physical and physiological differences between male and female. For any number of cases of transwomen competing against biological females, the former win and, in doing so, they insultingly say "well they just need to train more." For example, Rhys "Rachel" McKinnon is a trans woman who was a mediocre male cyclist and won a world championship as "a woman." https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6296975/American-cyclist-lashes-losing-world-championship-trans-woman-wont-accept-apology.html There are plenty of similar examples, including some quite brutal ones in women's MMA fighting. It is utterly insulting to suggest that the top female athletes who work extremely hard at their sport just have to try harder.

    This is nonsense and is the intellectual equivalence of climate change denial on the right. With very few exceptions, biological sex is binary and entirely real and not subject to surgical change.

      1. GenXer

        No, I agree that it is very rare for someone to transition solely for the purpose of sports. There are two gigantic HOWEVERs in that:

        1. Those who do transition from male to female who then want to participate in women's sports will have an inherent biological advantage regardless of any hormone therapy or testosterone suppression. Why trample the hard-won sex based rights of 50% of the population merely to satisfy the internal cravings of a handful of trans athletes? Why do the needs of the tiny few outweigh the needs of the many?
        2. Some trans activists are pushing for an even more extreme "no transition" policy for trans participation in sports. That is, a man could participate in women's sport solely on the basis of self-IDing as female, with zero social transition or hormonal treatment required. In such a case, you absolutely will see large numbers of men deciding to ID as a woman for a few days or weeks in order to win money or championships in women's sports.

  21. Yikes

    Well, I can think of an endless list of activities other than "sports" which would be better suited to challenging gender stereotypes.

    As a matter of fact, what Kevin and the person writing the article blows right by without so much as a "how de do" is that competitive sports, certainly at any type of advanced level, do not reward, or for that matter, punish "stereotypes."

    Stereotypes are rewarded or punished in activities which by their nature are partially or wholly subjective. Sports are designed, within the limits of the sport, to be objective.

    In all of the examples cited in the posts, there are objective, not subjective stereotypical, differences between male and female athletes which many sports are designed to measure. The track and field examples are the most straightforward.

    But take the tennis example. At the top level of men's or women's tennis, it does not take much of a measurable difference in speed for speed (covering the court) to be a huge factor. That's probably the main reason why a top 300 to 500 ranked male player could easily handle the game of a top ten women player.

    If you want to see what happens if you alter the game to delete court coverage, watch the mixed doubles at one of the grand slams. The men have no trouble aiming hard hit balls at the women pros, but as the women only need to cover half the court, just hitting the ball at the women won't get you very far.

    But this is a pointless discussion. No one transitions to be better at sports.

    I am fed up with intellectual musings of the left being treated as if they were actual policy proposals, while on the right ridiculous policy proposals are treated as if they were intellectual musings.

    And the so called liberal media, including Kevin, falls for it every damn time.

    1. wvng

      Perhaps "No one transitions to be better at sports" but some people who transition do compete in sports, and the characteristics of their biological sex traits then come into play. It would almost certainly be true that trans men do not compete against men in sports, because they still have the physiology and structural anatomy of a female and that puts them at a massive disadvantage.

    2. limitholdemblog

      I am fed up with intellectual musings of the left being treated as if they were actual policy proposals

      I think there's a significant contingent of trans activists, and a lot of allies on the left, who absolutely want to eliminate any sort of distinction between a cis and a trans woman, and a cis and a trans man. Real policy proposals include:

      1. Allowing trans women to compete immediately in the women's division and without a course of hormones or a waiting period.
      2. Routinely placing trans women in women's prisons.
      3. Removing assigned sex from birth certificates.
      4. Precluding any sex-based restrictions on bathrooms.
      5. Removing any references to "women" with respect to health care (especially reproductive care) that is specific to those assigned female at birth.
      6. Prohibiting single-sex trans exclusionary spaces such as single-sex colleges and rape crisis centers.

      Now as it happens I agree with much of this agenda (though not all of it). But it's real, and as I note above, it's a product of the fear of any backsliding on trans issues due to the history of discrimination (and may also be related to some other things as well).

      But this is, indeed, a policy debate and not just an airy debate about gender theory.

  22. ProbStat

    Broader questions:

    Why are there "gender roles?" Why do we think their are "male" ways of acting and "female" ways of acting, such that someone might think they are a woman in a man's body, or vice versa? Does it serve a purpose? If it does, is it a desirable purpose?

    Why are there gender specific pronouns? If we had race specific pronouns ... that would immediately seem kind of offensive -- why do we need to know if someone is European, African, or Asian in ethnicity -- ? But we have gender specific pronouns.

    There is a point to having some distinction in pronouns, so that some of the time we have more clarity: "She hit him with her flyswatter" is more precise than "He hit him with his flyswatter." And gender usually splits the population close to 50-50, so it's an excellent choice for this purpose.

    But it could probably be done better.

    1. limitholdemblog

      I agree that gender in language is often arbitrary. At the same time, as can be seen in the debates of "Latinx", coming in from outside and telling people to change their language doesn't work very well.

  23. galanx

    The Chinese language didn't have a distinction between 'he' and 'she' until they copied it from the Europeans in the 19th century. Didn't stop them from having an extremely sexist culture.

  24. Vog46

    Kevin
    Title IX requires that equal OPPORTUNITY be provided for women to participate in sports. It does NOT require integration of the teams themselves. It's a money game at it's core. Women who WANTED to play basketball were denied the opportunity because colleges (Pre Title IX) saw no $ in it.

    But I will ask a question here to point out a HUGE problem.
    Without Title IX how would the NCAA look like? No different -why? Title IX does NOT apply to colleges and universities run by religious organizations. Gonzaga is a Catholic university and Baylor is a Christian University. They are NOT required by Title IX to provide the equal opportunity to females. They do but it is not required of them.
    So let's fast forward. Lets say USC gets to the title game and their team is comprised of an integrated team. Gonzaga is all guys. Gonzaga wins by taking advantage of a size advantage over the integrated USC team. Is USC then being discriminated AGAINST?

    Then there is this. I live in Wilmington NC. WE have a local university UNC -W part of the UNC state wide system. We are not well known save for our oceanography program. We don't have a football team. We have BOTH a Mens and women's basketball tea, Because of the size of our school belongs to the Colonial Athletic Association or CAA. Our teams travel as far as Hempstead NY to play Hofstra or Boston to play Northeastern
    Now because we are small and don't have a large fan base who pays for all these sports, the travel etc? The students. each and every one of them pays about $2000 per semester in "fees" so that the 0.13% of the student population can participate in "sports" and travel up and down the east coast to play their games.
    Integrate the teams? Sure if it reduces our fees by 50% by eliminating "half" the opportunity that Title IX provides. Colleges and Universities provide EDUCATION and THAT education should be equal to all who pay - male, female, black white etc but sports adds an unfair burden to the majority. I would go so far to say this is tyranny of minority rule because you cannot say NO to the fees for the less than 1% to play sports.
    UNC Chapel Hill basketball and NC State football have multi million dollar TV and radio contracts that help off set the cost of their sports programs but smaller schools within the SAME SYSTEM do not.
    In the smaller schools case(s) Title IX is applying an unfair COST on students and parents to provide the equal opportunity that Title IX provides
    Post high school sports have gotten out of control with costs. Screw Title IX end the programs at the smaller schools and reduce the fees it takes to go to these schools.
    We are so small we might have PAID Lori Loughlin to send her girls to our school instead of the other way around

    1. Solar

      "They do but it is not required of them."

      They do it because everyone else has to and they don't want to miss out on that additional money and recognition.

    1. GenXer

      I see no parade of bigotry. I do see some people pushing back against the utter absurdities of claiming that biological sex is fluid and that there is no difference between biological men and biological women.

      1. wvng

        Yep. Even just a couple of years ago saying that sex isn't real would land you in the looney bin, now it is close to mainstream thought on the left BASED ON NO ACTUAL EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER, just talking points pushed out by the trans activist community.

  25. wvng

    A question for this group: there is a person in Canada who fathered five children (by that I mean he delivered sperm to his wife resulting in her pregnancy twice) who, a few years back decided he was actually female and six years old. Clearly the six year old part is delusional, why is his suddenly being female also not delusional.

    1. cld

      He fathered one set of twins and one set of triplets, or one baby and quadruplets?

      Maybe he just couldn't take the stress.

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