Transgender participation in gender-segregated athletic competition?

[TexanStar]

As gender transition becomes more accepted, there are more cases in the news of transgender women/men seeking to participate in competetive athletics on the same team for which they identify.

I'm curious how you feel about it (should it be allowed? Does it provide an unfair advantage? etc).

Personally, I feel like there are pretty clear differences in the physical prowess of men as compared to women. I don't mean that women can't be strong (there are plenty of women who could kick my ass on or off the field), but I feel like the way that men generate so much testosterone and their receptiveness to it creates an uneven field in a lot of competetive sports.

I support trans rights, but in this particular arena, I have concern about the extent to which it could potentially step on the rights of cis women. I'm not concerned about locker room changing or bathrooms or anything like that, but I feel like the whole point of women's sports is to have a venue where women can compete and excel on a level field and this kind of abuses that (not because the trans woman isn't a woman, but because she's bringing with her an advantage that was of enough relative significance that the sports were broken out along gender lines to begin with).

What's your thoughts on the topic?

 

[Samantha Hopkins]

I never came out until after school. I completely agree with the physical differences as you pointed out, it is really about the level playing field issue. I honestly think that pushing this will actually set back the gender acceptance discussion as parents are forced to have large males competing on female teams.

The current system on bathrooms is based on pass-ability, fair or not. If you are reasonably passable, or have had SRS you can go into the ladies room without issue. The problem is pass-ability. If you are not passable, there will be issues. When I was still figuring my crap out, I blankly went into a public mens room. It was a huge embarrassing mistake to discover I passed enough not to go in the mens room.

With regards to sports, there is also the locker room issue which is a huge issue of individual rights intersecting with nudity. Basically we are now creating a set of rights for transgender people which are superior to cis gender folks. A trans person can go in either bathroom they desire, they have full access to either locker room. However the cis gender people cant exercise the same discretion.

The cis gender people have a right to not have the opposite cis gender in their locker room, however they get no right to a single gender locker room if the person is trans. Is this discrimination against the other cis gender? why dont they have the same right to a single gender locker room without trans?

Unlike Gay marriage where rights were expanded, we are removing rights from one group to give to another. We did not argue that straight people can't get married so gay people can get married. But this is the argument here.

From a pragmatic point of view, and as the weirdo boy who secretly dressed as a girl in high school, I cant help but think there is a fully rational reason we want to keep teenage locker rooms separated. Kids are hormonally loaded, insecure, sensitive and horny. putting all the kids in one big locker room doesnt make sense.