Stop Trying to "Protect" Women by Banning Trans Athletes
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/golf/stop-trying-to-protect-women-by-banning-trans-athletes/ar-AA1vp0YT?ocid=windirect&cvid=44a8cff8c42e42e599c4c7db7dccdea2&ei=56
Story by Talia Barrington (6 Dec 2024)
On Saturday, the San Jose State University women's volleyball team, the Spartans, lost the championship game to the Colorado State Rams. The season was plagued with controversy after a Spartan player was outed as transgender back in April and the team's co-captain joined a lawsuit against the NCAA complaining that trans women in sports violates title IX.
Sigh. Here we go again. The fight to exclude transgender women from the upper echelons of women's sports has been raging all year (on Wednesday, the pro women's golf organizations LPGA and USGA announced a policy that would exclude most trans players) and, frankly, it's time to take a closer look at the sexist undercurrent of this tired debate.
Those supporting the bans claim they're necessary because cisgender women can't possibly be as athletic as trans women. "No woman's ever gonna have that strength and power that they have," the Spartan co-captain told Fox News.
But despite what the typical soundbites from the usual suspects (right-wing pundits, transphobic athletes and [facepalm] JK Rowling) claim, female athletes are nowhere near as vulnerable or outmatched as these bans and lawsuits against transgender players would have us believe...
This is an issue which has me massively conflicted. Probably like a lot of people.
I will say, I don't think it's going to go away no matter how much science you throw at it. Because emotion always beats logic. You can recite facts to people until you're blue in the face, but if someone can cry "Trans Wolf!" and have someone else, or another team, be put under the laser of populism these days, you can bet they're going to do it. Anything for an advantage. Anything to appeal to emotion. Whether there's justification for it or not. That's what sports has been reduced to.
The actual science these days feels less and less like it matters, when you have support, and people in charge ready to jump all over trans people. Just needing an excuse.
As much as I applaud what this article is trying to do, ultimately I don't think it will matter, sadly. Because it isn't about facts nowadays. It's about the trans boogeywoman.
I would argue the title should be the other way round. The trans athletes are the ones who seem to need the protection.
Quote from: Sephirah on December 07, 2024, 05:37:24 PMBecause it isn't about facts nowadays. It's about the trans boogeywoman.
"The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant."