Trans eligibility rules for girls sports.

[Grace T.]

I know it isn't fair to compare an elite collegiate swimmer (more elite in one gender than the other) to youth soccer leagues. Again, this is a circular argument being made in a make believe world - nothing has really happened yet in regards to soccer..it may never happen. has happened in HS track though, and see the ruckus it caused. It's an emotional argument not really based in science/biology, rather in today's society..Nothing wrong with that by the way.

And to kinda answer your question, in this make believe world: If a pre-teen child undergoes treatment, then fine, as long as the field is level. IF a post pubescent transgirl, without any type of treatment and who is progressing on a normal curve at age 16 gets on a field with girls...then no...not a level playing field.

I wonder how many kids/parents go through the trials and tribulations of pre pubescent treatment for a trans child. It's not an easy environment to manage...usually sports are the last things on their mind.

This is a thoughtful statement. Its also btw why I suggested that solo sports need to be held to a higher standard than team sports.

my only objection to your reasoning is that there is no such thing as a level playing field. There never is in sports. It’s an illusion. It’s certainly not a level playing field for the 14 year old girl that just happens to be not as great of a runner, despite training as much as her team captain. Even more so if said team captain is xxy genetically or has a high testosterone count. It’s not a level playing field for the 12 year old 5ft boy getting bounced off the ball by the 6ft early bloomer. It’s not a level playing field for a December birthday being forced to compete with a January birthday. And it’s certainly not a level playing field for the player who has to compete with the teenager that’s doping (I guess that means we put you down as someone who supports drug testing youth soccer athletes)

sometimes the closest we can get is “close enough” particularly when the results don’t really matter all that much (as say in Youth v academy or college soccer). Putting the mtf in the boys league also isn’t a level playing field for the mtf (whether they are on hormones or not since they’ll most likely not want to build body mass in order to blend in). Someone is always going to get screwed.

 

[Soccer Dad & Ref]

This is a thoughtful statement. Its also btw why I suggested that solo sports need to be held to a higher standard than team sports.

my only objection to your reasoning is that there is no such thing as a level playing field. There never is in sports. It’s an illusion. It’s certainly not a level playing field for the 14 year old girl that just happens to be not as great of a runner, despite training as much as her team captain. Even more so if said team captain is xxy genetically or has a high testosterone count. It’s not a level playing field for the 12 year old 5ft boy getting bounced off the ball by the 6ft early bloomer. It’s not a level playing field for a December birthday being forced to compete with a January birthday. And it’s certainly not a level playing field for the player who has to compete with the teenager that’s doping (I guess that means we put you down as someone who supports drug testing youth soccer athletes)

sometimes the closest we can get is “close enough” particularly when the results don’t really matter all that much (as say in Youth v academy or college soccer). Putting the mtf in the boys league also isn’t a level playing field for the mtf (whether they are on hormones or not since they’ll most likely not want to build body mass in order to blend in). Someone is always going to get screwed.

I don’t know how many times you’ll have to repeat what you just wriote, but as long as folks keep whining about unfairness in youth soccer because of this or that, feel free to say the above all over each time. Maybe if some of the folks here read it enough, it might JUST start sinking in. Thx

 

[dad4]

I don’t know how many times you’ll have to repeat what you just wriote, but as long as folks keep whining about unfairness in youth soccer because of this or that, feel free to say the above all over each time. Maybe if some of the folks here read it enough, it might JUST start sinking in. Thx

Sorry. "Everything is unfair, so we don't need to try" is just sloppy reasoning.

We do try. We have multiple age groups and multiple levels. We have boys leagues, girls leagues, adult leagues, and corporate leagues.

The question is not whether we try to divide people into different groups in order to create fairer games. The answer to that question is clearly yes.

The question is, given that we divide kids into different groups, what is the correct group for a teenage boy experiencing gender issues.

 

[MacDre]

Sorry. "Everything is unfair, so we don't need to try" is just sloppy reasoning.

We do try. We have multiple age groups and multiple levels. We have boys leagues, girls leagues, adult leagues, and corporate leagues.

The question is not whether we try to divide people into different groups in order to create fairer games. The answer to that question is clearly yes.

The question is, given that we divide kids into different groups, what is the correct group for a teenage boy experiencing gender issues.

According to my kid and her friends that include binary, trans etc. athlete’s should play in categories based on their birth sex and not gender.

Why don’t all of you old fucks stop pontificating and ask the kids how they feel?

 

[Pollo Elastico]

According to my kid and her friends that include binary, trans etc. athlete’s should play in categories based on their birth sex and not gender.

Why don’t all of you old fucks stop pontificating and ask the kids how they feel?

There is a reason we created womens/mens and girls/boys categories.

 

[GoldenGate]

There is a reason we created womens/mens and girls/boys categories.

This may actually be the stupidest of all the stupid arguments. In reality, there is a reason "we" created actually categories that allow transgender girls to participate. As long as you and your transphobic friends continue refusing to accept the legitimacy of those reasons, even if you believe they are outweighed by competing interests, you keep proving why those categories "we" created that allow transgender girls is necessary.

 

[Happened again]

.

According to my kid and her friends that include binary, trans etc. athlete’s should play in categories based on their birth sex and not gender.

Why don’t all of you old fucks stop pontificating and ask the kids how they feel?

That will never happen - old fucks don't want to hear truth, they want to wrap themselves around issues and pontificate - who cares what the kids think.

 

[Grace T.]

Sorry. "Everything is unfair, so we don't need to try" is just sloppy reasoning.

We do try. We have multiple age groups and multiple levels. We have boys leagues, girls leagues, adult leagues, and corporate leagues.

The question is not whether we try to divide people into different groups in order to create fairer games. The answer to that question is clearly yes.

The question is, given that we divide kids into different groups, what is the correct group for a teenage boy experiencing gender issues.

You are correct "everything is unfair, so we don't need to try" is sloppy reasoning. So is "we have to preserve a level playing field" because there is no such thing. The only thing we can do is create lines which hopefully are rational (and therefore justifiable) and therefore not arbitrary. Like borders on the map, though, they are an artificial fiction, and someone is going to get screwed.

It's also not rational to say the trans person (whatever their natural sex or chromosomal makeup) should be the one to get screwed just because of who they are. That's just bigotry. Someone is going to get screwed in this situation, the only question is who.

So, you think performance is an issue, you better be focused on performance. It's not rational to say we don't care about the cheaters (who are also using testosterone) but we do care about the trans kid. Also the trans kids whose performance is not impacted (mtfs on puberty blockers or surgery before puberty, ftms not on hormones) should be allowed to play in the female division. Girls who are caught up with unusually high testosterone need to be dealt with too.

If you think it's safety, you better be worried about the 5ft kid who is facing the 6ft and not just care about the trans kid.

If you think it's genetics (which is really a purity test), you darn well better not exempt the genetic anomalies and if you are going to test, test everyone.

The biggest question, though, is always what difference does it make. As far as ENCL kiddie soccer is concerned, at least to date we haven't shown a whole lot of concern in the 3 categories of issues that have been raised. The moral hysteria around trans kids is therefore not justified. It may very well be in other areas such as single sports or college D1 sports.

 

[Grace T.]

There is a reason we created womens/mens and girls/boys categories.

Yes, there is. But it wasn't about being the best. The culprit here is title IX. But for title ix, we would still have women's sports But they wouldn't be as widely dispersed as they are now. We've seen time and time again that when it comes to pro or college eyeballs, the public simply doesn't care about women's sports as much as they care about men's. It's instinctual. Being the best is the women's division is not about being the best...it's about being the best in a lesser division (most sports, some like gymnastics and ice skating excluded). But what was the purpose of title ix? It was to allow women to participate fully in sports (because people thought there was participatory value beyond just being the best) and equality (which is ironic then that now people are using the women's category to rail against the trans kids).

Speaking about fairness, even though by the time he graduates my son will be a better player than at least 95% of the same aged women in Socal, is it fair the 85th% of women will get a soccer scholarship (not to mention the 40th person potentially at his college that gets to sit on the bench in gridiron football) but he doesn't?

 

[Pollo Elastico]

Speaking about fairness, even though by the time he graduates my son will be a better player than at least 95% of the same aged women in Socal, is it fair the 85th% of women will get a soccer scholarship (not to mention the 40th person potentially at his college that gets to sit on the bench in gridiron football) but he doesn't?

Yep it is fair.

Those women you mention are competing amongst themselves and those that get scholarships will do so on a women's team.

Your son if and when he gets a scholarship, it will be based on how competitive he is vs other men trying for spots on the men's team.

What isn't fair or right is a man getting a scholarship on a women's team.

I shake my head when I think the guy on the women's swim team at Penn was up for Woman of the Year in that sport. What a farce. And even more so that a lot of people think that is fantastic.

 

[Grace T.]

Yep it is fair.

Those women you mention are competing amongst themselves and those that get scholarships will do so on a women's team.

Your son if and when he gets a scholarship, it will be based on how competitive he is vs other men trying for spots on the men's team.

What isn't fair or right is a man getting a scholarship on a women's team.

I shake my head when I think the guy on the women's swim team at Penn was up for Woman of the Year in that sport. What a farce. And even more so that a lot of people think that is fantastic.

You are conflating a whole bunch of questions and making assumptions. The guy on the women's team at Penn is completely different than ECNL kiddie soccer. The swimming results matter a lot more than who wins a trophy at surf cup....there are records at stake, Olympics at stake, Woman of the Year at stake. The swimmer is in a solo sport where it makes more of an impact than a team sport. The swimmer is also an adult who is in a better position to make permanent life altering changes than a teen playing youth sport or a kid that is 7. And at a certain point, we should be concerned with doping and make an effort to catch the cheaters.

My son will be competing for a scholarship where perhaps let's say 5 men's scholarships are offered for soccer. An equivalent girl is competing for a scholarship where perhaps 18 scholarship are offered for soccer. That's not a "level playing field". Why? Because we drew some artificial lines: football is counted as a sport but cheerleading is not, and men and women get equivalent numbers of scholarships even though there is far more interest in men's sports than there is among women's. Why did we do that? For reasons of participation and equity, not because we wanted to see who was the best in a sport or putting money where the interest was.

 

[espola]

You are conflating a whole bunch of questions and making assumptions. The guy on the women's team at Penn is completely different than ECNL kiddie soccer. The swimming results matter a lot more than who wins a trophy at surf cup....there are records at stake, Olympics at stake, Woman of the Year at stake. The swimmer is in a solo sport where it makes more of an impact than a team sport. The swimmer is also an adult who is in a better position to make permanent life altering changes than a teen playing youth sport or a kid that is 7. And at a certain point, we should be concerned with doping and make an effort to catch the cheaters.

My son will be competing for a scholarship where perhaps let's say 5 men's scholarships are offered for soccer. An equivalent girl is competing for a scholarship where perhaps 18 scholarship are offered for soccer. That's not a "level playing field". Why? Because we drew some artificial lines: football is counted as a sport but cheerleading is not, and men and women get equivalent numbers of scholarships even though there is far more interest in men's sports than there is among women's. Why did we do that? For reasons of participation and equity, not because we wanted to see who was the best in a sport or putting money where the interest was.

5 scholarships vs 18 scholarships? You're manipulating the numbers to advance your argument.

 

[Grace T.]

5 scholarships vs 18 scholarships? You're manipulating the numbers to advance your argument.

That's a fair critique. If you have more realistic numbers happy to use those. It's certainly not equivalent, however.

 

[dad4]

You are conflating a whole bunch of questions and making assumptions. The guy on the women's team at Penn is completely different than ECNL kiddie soccer. The swimming results matter a lot more than who wins a trophy at surf cup....there are records at stake, Olympics at stake, Woman of the Year at stake. The swimmer is in a solo sport where it makes more of an impact than a team sport. The swimmer is also an adult who is in a better position to make permanent life altering changes than a teen playing youth sport or a kid that is 7. And at a certain point, we should be concerned with doping and make an effort to catch the cheaters.

My son will be competing for a scholarship where perhaps let's say 5 men's scholarships are offered for soccer. An equivalent girl is competing for a scholarship where perhaps 18 scholarship are offered for soccer. That's not a "level playing field". Why? Because we drew some artificial lines: football is counted as a sport but cheerleading is not, and men and women get equivalent numbers of scholarships even though there is far more interest in men's sports than there is among women's. Why did we do that? For reasons of participation and equity, not because we wanted to see who was the best in a sport or putting money where the interest was.

Cheer was excluded because, in 1972, the athletic directors would have expanded the cheer squads and completely ignored all other women’s sports.

I also thought men’s sports had more player interest. Turn out I was wrong. They do surveys, and overall youth participation rates are about equal.

Your son is just facing the fact that he is in a second tier men’s sport, and second tier sports get less attention. So, there are fewer scholarships, but he is facing less skilled athletes. If he preferred football, there would be more scholarships, but he would be facing better athletes.

 

[Grace T.]

Cheer was excluded because, in 1972, the athletic directors would have expanded the cheer squads and completely ignored all other women’s sports.

I also thought men’s sports had more player interest. Turn out I was wrong. They do surveys, and overall youth participation rates are about equal.

Your son is just facing the fact that he is in a second tier men’s sport, and second tier sports get less attention. So, there are fewer scholarships, but he is facing less skilled athletes. If he preferred football, there would be more scholarships, but he would be facing better athletes.

As to your first point, cheer, yes but it's still an artificial line that was drawn: cheer is not a sport. We can argue whether it was the right or wrong decision, but it's still, in the end, line drawing.

As to your second point, o.k. good to know. Title IX sure seems successful that way then, in participation.

Men's gridiron football is also pretty arbitrary when it comes to determining who is a "better athlete" which is also dependent on the lines we draw. Quarterbacks certain have great running skills, great hand eye coordination and get as much training as elite soccer goalkeepers (if not more). Receivers too, less so than quarterbacks. It's hard to jump into quarterback if you haven't been doing it since childhood....less hard as a receiver jumping in freshman year, though still difficult. The line though sometimes is just selected based on physical size...yes there's some technical stuff they need to learn....yeah they also need to develop a certain mentality....but whether the linesman (who is getting the scholarship) is more of an athlete than the goalkeeper is an open question, let alone say a female figure skater. Again there's no objective "fairness" here...it is an illusion...the argument you just made is that it is capitalism (which has a lot of merits, but "fairness" isn't necessarily one of them depending on how you define the term).

 

[Pollo Elastico]

My son will be competing for a scholarship where perhaps let's say 5 men's scholarships are offered for soccer. An equivalent girl is competing for a scholarship where perhaps 18 scholarship are offered for soccer. That's not a "level playing field". Why? Because we drew some artificial lines: football is counted as a sport but cheerleading is not, and men and women get equivalent numbers of scholarships even though there is far more interest in men's sports than there is among women's. Why did we do that? For reasons of participation and equity, not because we wanted to see who was the best in a sport or putting money where the interest was.

So the sports in college have to offer an equal amount of scholarships to men and women.

And now what many are advocating is to allow men who wear dresses to take a scholarship reserved for women?

It is crazy.

And now we have schools, gov agencies playing along producing documents, etc with silly stull like "people who menstrate" or "people who give birth". Who are those people? Women. Who cannot do those things? Men. And yet we increasingly have an Orwellian type situation being shoved down are throats in a variety of ways....

One of which is they we are to pretend that it is fine and ok for men to take spots in womens sports...and oh yeah by the way...call them women.

I dont care what people do personally. If some guy wants to wear a dress and pretend he is a woman that is fine by me. I do have an issue with him playing in womens sports.

 

[Woodwork]

I keep seeing phrases in here like "men's sports" and "women's sports."

Can someone identify the sports where people are smacking the ball with their unique genitalia?

Otherwise, we have sports in which all genders can play together equally, but we have different brackets or leagues based on a variety of things, some of which are correlated (but not perfectly) to level of play, some for safety, some for convenience, and some for fellowship/social reasons.

 

[Woodwork]

So the sports in college have to offer an equal amount of scholarships to men and women.

And now what many are advocating is to allow men who wear dresses to take a scholarship reserved for women?

It is crazy.

And now we have schools, gov agencies playing along producing documents, etc with silly stull like "people who menstrate" or "people who give birth". Who are those people? Women. Who cannot do those things? Men. And yet we increasingly have an Orwellian type situation being shoved down are throats in a variety of ways....

One of which is they we are to pretend that it is fine and ok for men to take spots in womens sports...and oh yeah by the way...call them women.

I dont care what people do personally. If some guy wants to wear a dress and pretend he is a woman that is fine by me. I do have an issue with him playing in womens sports.

Wait a minute, you are saying that some girl can get dress up in a uniform and kick a ball and take away a spot in a collegiate classroom from my son, who scored better than her in every test and academic grades? Some people take it as gospel that because it is status quo it must be right. But maybe the current lines weren't drawn by God and we can try different things.

As a staunch republican I may have protested Title 9, so I have nothing to be upset about now unless I just hate change of any kind.

 

[Grace T.]

So the sports in college have to offer an equal amount of scholarships to men and women.

And now what many are advocating is to allow men who wear dresses to take a scholarship reserved for women?

It is crazy.

And now we have schools, gov agencies playing along producing documents, etc with silly stull like "people who menstrate" or "people who give birth". Who are those people? Women. Who cannot do those things? Men. And yet we increasingly have an Orwellian type situation being shoved down are throats in a variety of ways....

One of which is they we are to pretend that it is fine and ok for men to take spots in womens sports...and oh yeah by the way...call them women.

I dont care what people do personally. If some guy wants to wear a dress and pretend he is a woman that is fine by me. I do have an issue with him playing in womens sports.

a. again, you can have a separate standard for scholarships than who should play ECNL kiddie ball.
b. not all women can menstrate and not all women can give birth. It's not a good test.
c. the question you haven't answered is why do you have an issue playing in women's sports? What's the objection other than "I don't like them" or "I don't like it". Those are feelings, not rational lines being drawn.
d. do you have the same issue with women who become men if they choose to continue to play in women's sports? presumably then you are o.k. with the fully bearded, testosterone taking ftm continuing to play in the women's division
e. reading in the subtext, it's pretty apparent you do have an issue "if some guy wants to wear and dress and pretend he is a woman". The word "pretend" minimizes a situation which is otherwise horrible (you really think someone would voluntarily go through all that just because they want to "pretend")

 

[Pollo Elastico]

again, you can have a separate standard for scholarships than who should play ECNL kiddie ball.

We not just have one ECNL team. And boys and girls can try out for that team?

The reason as we know is few if any girls would make the team. That is why we have girls and boys groups.

b. not all women can menstrate and not all women can give birth. It's not a good test.

It is a good test. You may have some women that cannot menstrate or give birth. However you dont have any men that can give birth or menstrate. Rather straightforward. Biology determines that.

the question you haven't answered is why do you have an issue playing in women's sports? What's the objection other than "I don't like them" or "I don't like it". Those are feelings, not rational lines being drawn.

The issue is there is a reason we created the divisions in the first place. It allows girls to play. If they had to compete for a spot on a boys ecnl team, they are not making those teams. It is why womens national teams lose to younger boys ecnl teams. And that is not feeling based. That is entirely rational.

d. do you have the same issue with women who become men if they choose to continue to play in women's sports? presumably then you are o.k. with the fully bearded, testosterone taking ftm continuing to play in the women's division

The issue I have is women cannot become men. Nor can men become women. Surgically removing a penis or breasts does not suddenly make the person the other sex. They can dress as they like and act as they like. But the fact remains, surgery or drugs does not transform a man to a woman or a woman to a man.

e. reading in the subtext, it's pretty apparent you do have an issue "if some guy wants to wear and dress and pretend he is a woman". The word "pretend" minimizes a situation which is otherwise horrible (you really think someone would voluntarily go through all that just because they want to "pretend")

It is pretending.

It is about as crazy as me one day declaring I am Asian or African American and expecting to receive minority scholarships, loans designated for minority biz, etc. I could start speaking Japanese, dressing in traditional clothing, taking on cultural mannerisms, etc. And yet none of that would make me Japanese. Dressing up as a women, doing a surgery, etc will not make me a woman either.

 

[Soccer Dad & Ref]

It's obvious Elastic Chicken has no respect for people that don't feel comfortable staying in the gender they were born with. Refusing to acknowledge Gender dysphoria or to have empathy for those experiencing it is cruel.