I see this argument made about transgender athletes so frequently and yet…
It’s crazy, because professional athletics is absolutely rife with outright doping and edge-case medicalization. If you’re a 12-year-old on a regiment of HGH, there’s nothing that’s going to separate you from a “naturally” big guy like André the Giant or Yao Ming in another ten years. You don’t have to change your sex in order to enjoy a performance benefit from modern medicine. And, as the '00s-era of baseball demonstrates, nobody really cares so long as they get to see you pitch no-hitters or hit lots of home runs. So the idea that “changing your gender” is cheating runs afoul of all the folks who ahem stayed in their lane and still cheated and will most likely run circles around you in any competitive athletic setting.
Further, changing your gender either sets you out the gate as being at a disadvantage or sticks you with an enormous handicap relative to people who aren’t in transition. Gender transition never actually improves your ability to compete in a sport. That’s why you never actually saw the “team of T-girls” cleaning up at softball or dominating the WNBA. You weren’t seeing T-boys burst onto the scene in high school men’s athletics as UIL champions. It was always some white boy comedy fantasy or cartoon show punchline.
Finally, the very idea of “fairness” in professional athletics, from a physical individual perspective is absurd. People aren’t the same. Nobody is expecting them to be the same. We aren’t demanding people under 5’ to play professional basketball or people coming in under 100 lbs to compete as linemen in the NFL.
It’s always been bullshit, top to bottom. Just something for people to scream at, because Cracker Barrel hadn’t changed their logo yet.
I see this argument made about transgender athletes so frequently and yet…
It’s crazy, because professional athletics is absolutely rife with outright doping and edge-case medicalization. If you’re a 12-year-old on a regiment of HGH, there’s nothing that’s going to separate you from a “naturally” big guy like André the Giant or Yao Ming in another ten years. You don’t have to change your sex in order to enjoy a performance benefit from modern medicine. And, as the '00s-era of baseball demonstrates, nobody really cares so long as they get to see you pitch no-hitters or hit lots of home runs. So the idea that “changing your gender” is cheating runs afoul of all the folks who ahem stayed in their lane and still cheated and will most likely run circles around you in any competitive athletic setting.
Further, changing your gender either sets you out the gate as being at a disadvantage or sticks you with an enormous handicap relative to people who aren’t in transition. Gender transition never actually improves your ability to compete in a sport. That’s why you never actually saw the “team of T-girls” cleaning up at softball or dominating the WNBA. You weren’t seeing T-boys burst onto the scene in high school men’s athletics as UIL champions. It was always some white boy comedy fantasy or cartoon show punchline.
Finally, the very idea of “fairness” in professional athletics, from a physical individual perspective is absurd. People aren’t the same. Nobody is expecting them to be the same. We aren’t demanding people under 5’ to play professional basketball or people coming in under 100 lbs to compete as linemen in the NFL.
It’s always been bullshit, top to bottom. Just something for people to scream at, because Cracker Barrel hadn’t changed their logo yet.