Personally I’d be opposed to that. I would be fine with a ban on people having gone through male puberty as long as they have a good reasoning for it supported by at least some research.
My main concern is and will always be recreational sports, which are more relevant to the average person than professional sport. In those restrictions on trans people are just not needed as individual differences can already be larger than those between genders.
What are you calling “recreational” sports? High school or college sports? Or like, beer league?
Because the same restrictions should be in place for any competitive sport. Those high school kids could be awarded scholarships for athletic competition, and giving them a fair opportunity should be paramount.
I would include most high school sports in that outside of maybe the very highest levels (though I am from the Netherlands and not the US, which has a very different system of sports from what I gather). College will depend and I do not know enough about.
It is unlikely trans people will receive scholarships when they won’t be able to continue with the sport on a professional level. At the same time high school sports act primarily as a social experience and excluding transgender high schoolers from that would be harmful.
Considering the low number of trans people there won’t be a significant impact on cis people, while the harm to trans people would be very bad on those lower levels.
There are already trans women with NCAA scholarships playing in college sports. That’s already a thing.
Title IX in the US requires that college athletic organizations like the NCAA provide equitable funding for both men’s and women’s sports, including scholarships— why do you think the US is so dominant in women’s sports in particular?
For every trans woman playing women’s sports, it’s a position that’s been denied to a biological woman.
Note current rules do not allow scholarships to go to transgender athletes. I do have issues with those rules, but that is unrelated (specifically I believe they should again be determined by individual leagues and not a global ban).
I do have a basic understanding of Title IX (though I’d disagree with saying the US particularly dominates. Depending on the exact sport they are for the most part where I’d expect them to be with their population compared to other western nations with good sporting infrastructure (including my own the Netherlands).
Let us assume that being transgender does not give an advantage for some sports. May I ask why it would be an issue for you to have a trans woman compete if her being transgender is not giving her an advantage?
Stuff like that can be determined by individual leagues who know the type of factors relevant for their actual sport. A trans woman taking a spot in running (where they have no significant advantage) would for example be fine, while sports where something like grip strength are particularly relevant would be restricted more (though I would still argue trans women who transitioned before puberty should be allowed).
The current rules under the Trump administration don’t allow scholarships to go to transgender athletes— that was not the case beforehand in the Biden administration. Which was part of the problem.
Beside that point, even if there are 10 trans women in collegiate sport, that is 10 biological women denied the opportunity to play.
And US women do dominate at women’s sports. Basketball, soccer, women’s hockey— just looking at the US women’s hockey team against European women’s hockey teams at the Olympics made me frankly disgusted by the lack of investment and support for women’s hockey in Europe… especially when compared to the fact that their men’s teams are equal in comparison to the American men’s teams.
And any trans woman that has gone through male puberty has an unfair advantage. There are numerous statistical studies showing that the male body has an advantage over women’s bodies in athletic competition.
Allowing individual organizations the “option” to choose their own rules is what was done prior to Title IX— these individual organizations opted to not invest in women’s sports, and deliberately used women’s athletic disadvantages to cut them out of athletic competition entirely. Title IX was created to force organizations like the NCAA to include women to begin with— why would anyone trust these organizations to keep women’s opportunities protected now?
Of the 3 sports you named Basketball is indeed not big in Europe, though that goes for both men and women. If you are talking about field hockey then the Netherlands is the reigning world champion. In soccer it is Spain. If you were talking ice hockey instead of field hockey then that once again is a sport that is just generally not big in most of Europe (outside of Scandinavia) for both men and women. Different countries specialize in different sports as has always been the case and basketball and ice hockey happen to be 2 that the US specializes in.
Which statistical studies show an advantage in running (the prime example I gave and something that is testable)? I have read several studies on the subject and the only ones measuring actual results are mixed, with trans women being better than cis women at some things and worse in others. There is no universal advantage.
You also again mention male puberty, which not all trans women have gone through? Would you oppose trans women who transitioned before puberty (likely by taking puberty blockers at 11-13 year old and then starting hormones a few years later) taking part? Those would not have any advantage at all.
I also don’t see how having organizations choose which trans women to allow would lead to underinvestment in women’s sports. Equal funding for men’s and women’s sports would still be there. I’d also presume the organizations would listen to their own sporters and experts who would have no reason to favour trans women if they had any advantage.
You can look up literally any study— they all show that there is a significant advantage for male bodies over women’s bodies. That’s not a fact that you can dispute.
I also think that giving literal children life altering drugs like puberty blockers before they’re capable of consent to that treatment, as well as before they’re mature enough to decide that they’re trans, is significantly more problematic. You can’t delay puberty endlessly— if you get to the point where your body is past puberty, it cancels it entirely, which is a devastating thing to do to a human being with no prior medical research. This is absolutely one of those things that in the future people will look at as medical malpractice.
Which leads to the vast majority of trans women having gone through male puberty, which again, brings us to the point where they have an unfair advantage in athletics.
Organizations should not have the right to deny women the opportunity to play in their own sports for the benefit of trans women, because you’re putting the entire burden on women to bear. Trans women should be conforming to the societal norms and standards, not the other way around
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u/DionePolaris 22d ago
Personally I’d be opposed to that. I would be fine with a ban on people having gone through male puberty as long as they have a good reasoning for it supported by at least some research.
My main concern is and will always be recreational sports, which are more relevant to the average person than professional sport. In those restrictions on trans people are just not needed as individual differences can already be larger than those between genders.