Trans eligibility rules for girls sports.

[GoldenGate]

Can one of you transphobes explain to me why the government should not interfere with private business, but it should absolutely interfere with a private business that allows a 10 year old trans girl to play goalie at Surf Cup?

 

[Happened again]

Sad little guy is just so depressed that the U20 WNT lost a soccer game. Surely it means the end of the United States unless we immediately ban trans girls from being able to play on girls teams, right? Do you think there is still time to save America?

Funny, know your audience. Your panties in a bunch about tranphobia and you've yet to pay attention to pretty much anything. Thanks for the XY attribution but you swing and miss again. Certainly not a little guy...Still a somewhat little girl though...last time I checked, I'm holding on strong to XX. Please go back to your little wittle room and argue with yourself. Certainly obvious you completely missed the point in regards to the U20s.

 

[Happened again]

You're a clown, but it is common for transphobes to bury their heads in the sand with all the bs nonsense being spewed by their transphobic brethren. A couple people have tried to out a 10 year old girl as trans. Others here are making the argument of "biology" to categorically exclude all trans girls from participation at all age levels. Others believe we should subject 10 year old girls to the NWSL requirement of testosterone suppression in order to play. Some have claimed that 10 year old children playing soccer is a "safety issue". And you lapped it all up.

I have no idea why you think the US losing a U20 WWC cup has anything to do with trans girls playing soccer, besides the fact that it is indicative of your inability to think rationally. You do understand that the U20 WWC team involves a bunch of kids who have been thrown together at the last minute and asked to play as a coherent unit with players with whom they do not have nearly the same familiarity that the Netherlands players have with their teammates, right? But, hey, have you considered the fact that the Netherlands was among the first countries in the world to change their gender marker on their official identity papers? And is one of the most inclusive countries in the world with respect to LGBTQ rights? That the Netherlands doesn't ban schools from discussing transgender status, unlike some states here? Have you considered the possibility that maybe the US would be better at U20 soccer if parents here stopped raising their children to hate trans people and spend their time at their daughter's soccer games less pissy that maybe the goalie with short hair is a "boy"?

I do have plenty of experience in competitive "scenarios" btw. It is obvious, however, that you have zero experience with trans people other than to dehumanize them and support their ongoing abuse, of course.

Gawd you are an idiot. what are you even spewing forth here? Now I'm anti U20s? didn't we just go through this in another topic? Unseat your panties and center yourself. You will be amazed to realize that we agree on the dominance of US women's soccer, now, and in the foreaseable future. All of the other stuff you mention is gibberish....again, I admire your gallant defense of trans kids. They deserve it - tough being one. In practice I doubt you could really defend anything..


Please lift the little tiny pebble and crawl back into the hole it covered.

 

[dad4]

If safety is the concern, you could do a height/weight classification, as your combat sports examples illustrate. It doesn't just have to be height. You can't come after the trans kid if you are letting the 5 ft 12 year old kid get blasted by 6 ft built like a line backer early bloomer

If performance is your concern, then testosterone test. You can't come after the trans kids until you come after the cheaters who are doing steroids. If it's not important enough to testosterone test, then the only thing you are doing is targeting the MTF transgenders because it's easy to go after them and you don't want your kids to go through the inconvenience or expense to testosterone test. It also catches BTW the small number of girls who for some biological reason has some very high testosterone level.

My only point is systems which ends in "kick out the trans kid" but leaves in place the other obvious targets has no other end than we don't want the trans kid to play. If it's not important to take out the surrounding concerns, it's not important enough to kick out the trans kid. Besides, we want a policy in place that encourages kids to take the steps to make sure they are 100% sure of their choice before undertaking drastic measures and we don't want to rush them into transitioning because they want the opportunity to do something as stupid as play competitive sports. Once they hit college, sure use greater scrutiny (I don't believe Lia Thomas should have been given such a pass)...in individual sports sure use greater scrutiny (I also think if we are talking records and state championships, though, individual sports should have to steroid test).

No one is saying "kick out the trans kid".

They are saying "find them a spot on a coed or boys team"

Ok. You three can go back to your usual "transphobe" name calling. The kid is still welcome to play against the other XY kids.

 

[Grace T.]

No one is saying "kick out the trans kid".

They are saying "find them a spot on a coed or boys team"

Ok. You three can go back to your usual "transphobe" name calling. The kid is still welcome to play against the other XY kids.

Well, let's analyze.

If safety is a concern, then I guess we don't care about the safety of the MTF transkid playing because once they take the hormone or the puberty blocker, they'll be a deterioration of their stature vis-a-vis non impaired males.

If performance is a concern, it's the same. They'll fall behind non impaired males.

You could make the dividing line when they begin to take hormones or puberty blockers. However, that has the nasty side effect that we don't want to encourage kids to rush into transition prematurely. It's in our interest to make sure that if they are making such a permanent choice, they make it as late as possible and not put in incentives for them to rush before they are 100% sure.

BTW, I never called you a transphobe. I challenged your line of reasoning. At first you said it was the y chromosome but that turned out to just be pretextual. I invited you to a performance standard, but you didn't seem concerned with the cheaters-- that would mean singling out a group for their status not their performance. Someone suggested a height/weight standard, but then that wasn't applied evenly around other boys and girls. You developed a system intellectually that got you to where it wanted based on prior conceived notions. Only you can answer why and what's in your heart. Here's the check on that: well then I assume the same goes under your newest proposed system for the FTM...you are o.k. with them, even if they are on testosterone, with them playing with the girls for as long as they want to, until they are ready to voluntarily make the switch...correct?

 

[SIP]

No one is saying "kick out the trans kid".

They are saying "find them a spot on a coed or boys team"

Ok. You three can go back to your usual "transphobe" name calling. The kid is still welcome to play against the other XY kids.

please protect all kids' (human) privacy.

there are girls have XY chromosomes, there are several syndrome cause it. And there are boys who have XX chromosomes. when a gene on the Y chromosome ends up on an X chromosome, causing that X chromosome to function more like a Y. most of them live their entire lives without knowing it. and they don't need to know because they want to play soccer.

stop this conversation already.

 

[Code]

Good question. Two reasons. First, because that is the hill the transphobes chose to die on when they chose to dehumanize and out a specific 10 year old girl at this website. Second, the situation of a 10 year old very obviously highlights the fact that literally none of the arguments that support imposing limitations on transgender participation make sense when applied to a 10 year old girl. That the answer to the question transgender participation is appropriate or not depends on a multitude of factors, including legitimate safety concerns, the societal importance or relative lack of importance of winning/losing at a particular age group or level, the importance of teaching inclusion at particular age group, the privacy interests at issue, and ways to make it fair for everyone, not just the transphobes who are desperate for they're (typically physically deficient) little princess to win a trophy.

Compare a 10 year old trans girl to the Penn swimmer. Is an NCAA championship societally important and an appropriate consideration when deciding what standards should apply? Sure, to some extent. Is the 10 year old girls' bracket at Surf Cup. No f**king way, since we're just talking about the fragile egos of some transphobic shit bag fathers. Is it important for society to take efforts to intervene to protect a fully grown adult who was a sufficiently elite enough to swim as a male at one of the best universities in the country? Maybe not, although those same rules also provide opportunity to far less elite swimmers to overcome much worse history of abuse, so maybe one trans woman winning a national championship in the entire history of the NCAA is a small price to pay to help less fortunate people. Regardless, is it important for society to protect 10 year old trans girls from what is almost inevitable abuse if we don't? Absolutely. Similarly, is it critically important to teach grown adults at Penn lessons in inclusion? Sure, but not nearly as important as teaching those lessons to 10 year old children.

Does it make sense to DNA test players at the Olympics? Sure. Does DNA testing 10 year old girls at Surf Cup make any f**king sense at all? Of course not. Are there important privacy interests for 10 year old trans girls? As the shit bags here who took it upon themselves to try to out one have proven, absolutely. Do those same privacy concerns apply to an elite athlete who decided to accept their status as a public figure by participating in the Olympics, or even an NCAA championship? Absolutely not.

Does requiring testosterone suppression make sense at an Olympic level where biological male testosterone among elite athletes is hugely different than female athletes? Of course. Does it make sense at a prepubescent level where boys and girls still share very similar testosterone levels and before they are old enough to make an educated decision about this? Absolutely not.

Are there legitimate safety issues that need to be addressed in team sports at the pro and NCAA level? Sure. Are there with 10 year old girls? FFS, no. I also disagree with your opinion that 13 year old should be a cut-off for transgender participation in comp soccer, but at least that's a rational opinion. My daughter played trans girls all the way through club, and maybe even in college, with no problems. Not a single GDA or ECNL trans girl ever caused a safety issue, and there are more than adequate guardrails in place to ensure that it doesn't happen. There are rules that obviously prohibit dangerous play, there are three refs, two coaches, and a lot of thought that was put in by ECNL before letting it happen. There is the fact that trans girls are incredibly rare and that I have yet to ever witness a trans girl who was out to hurt someone or play in a way that was physically dangerous. It is a phantom fear. It is far more likely that any girl hurt your kid than a trans girl who has been living in fear her entire life that even the slightest mis-step could ruin her life or get her killed.

I never said that 13 year old transgender participation should be cut off. I said that is the age when the concern becomes relevant. For the sake of all athletes, trans and cis, we should be having a logical and serious discussion about what and if any guidlines should be considered before some problem erupts about it during play. Is it age based? Size based? Testosterone based? ect... USYS and USClubSoccer should be including guidelines and policies in the rules to avoid all the foreseable drama that is going to occur on the fields if they just try to ignore it. Transgender athletes in youth sports is probably more common than anybody realizes, but the scenario is not going to become less likely as time moves on. I'm sure we all recognize that more transgender people are coming out publically than ever before. I don't have the answers, but I do have a lot of questions and opinions.

 

[dad4]

Well, let's analyze.

If safety is a concern, then I guess we don't care about the safety of the MTF transkid playing because once they take the hormone or the puberty blocker, they'll be a deterioration of their stature vis-a-vis non impaired males.

If performance is a concern, it's the same. They'll fall behind non impaired males.

You could make the dividing line when they begin to take hormones or puberty blockers. However, that has the nasty side effect that we don't want to encourage kids to rush into transition prematurely. It's in our interest to make sure that if they are making such a permanent choice, they make it as late as possible and not put in incentives for them to rush before they are 100% sure.

BTW, I never called you a transphobe. I challenged your line of reasoning. At first you said it was the y chromosome but that turned out to just be pretextual. I invited you to a performance standard, but you didn't seem concerned with the cheaters-- that would mean singling out a group for their status not their performance. Someone suggested a height/weight standard, but then that wasn't applied evenly around other boys and girls. You developed a system intellectually that got you to where it wanted based on prior conceived notions. Only you can answer why and what's in your heart. Here's the check on that: well then I assume the same goes under your newest proposed system for the FTM...you are o.k. with them, even if they are on testosterone, with them playing with the girls for as long as they want to, until they are ready to voluntarily make the switch...correct?

What is in their heart? Doesn't matter. That is their business, not mine. I hope they find their path.

What I care about is the longer bones, the extra nuclei in their muscle cells, the added lung capacity, and the rest of the advantages any XY athlete received from their testosterone years.

Sincerity of belief doesn't erase any of that.

 

[Grace T.]

What is in their heart? Doesn't matter. That is their business, not mine. I hope they find their path.

What I care about is the longer bones, the extra nuclei in their muscle cells, the added lung capacity, and the rest of the advantages any XY athlete received from their testosterone years.

Sincerity of belief doesn't erase any of that.

You completely missed the point. You accused me of calling YOU a transphobe. I said I can't determine what's in YOUR heart. What makes it suspect, though, is that you push every special case to the result that YOU want and predetermined before going into this intellectual exercise. Only YOU can explain that.

The question you haven't been able to answer is "what's the point?" What's the point of restricting MTFs from participating where they are most comfortable: with the girls.

Now you say the concern is the testosterone exposure, so it's performance. Well, steroids do the same thing. You don't seem to worried about catching the cheaters. If so, what difference does it all make? You are picking on the transkid that just wants to play with the girls, but you are letting the cheaters go scott free (for whatever reason...maybe you personally don't want to be inconvenienced by the cost and hassels of testosterone testing....maybe again it's pretextual and you are o.k. with turning a blind eye to the cheat but want to get the transkid...only YOU know what's in YOUR heart). You can't get away from this....if this is you concern, you can't pick on the easy fruit of the transkid and turn a blind eye to the cheaters. If it's important enough to restrict the transkid (who may be on estrogen or puberty blockers and therefore unable to keep up with the testosterone males), it's important enough to test for testosterone, particularly as, unlike college kids, they haven't 100% gone through the transformative changes

 

[Grace T.]

You completely missed the point. You accused me of calling YOU a transphobe. I said I can't determine what's in YOUR heart. What makes it suspect, though, is that you push every special case to the result that YOU want and predetermined before going into this intellectual exercise. Only YOU can explain that.

The question you haven't been able to answer is "what's the point?" What's the point of restricting MTFs from participating where they are most comfortable: with the girls.

Now you say the concern is the testosterone exposure, so it's performance. Well, steroids do the same thing. You don't seem to worried about catching the cheaters. If so, what difference does it all make? You are picking on the transkid that just wants to play with the girls, but you are letting the cheaters go scott free (for whatever reason...maybe you personally don't want to be inconvenienced by the cost and hassels of testosterone testing....maybe again it's pretextual and you are o.k. with turning a blind eye to the cheat but want to get the transkid...only YOU know what's in YOUR heart). You can't get away from this....if this is you concern, you can't pick on the easy fruit of the transkid and turn a blind eye to the cheaters. If it's important enough to restrict the transkid (who may be on estrogen or puberty blockers and therefore unable to keep up with the testosterone males), it's important enough to test for testosterone, particularly as, unlike college kids, they haven't 100% gone through the transformative changes

BTW the immediate consequence of this is that you will have absolutely 100% pushed more people to get transitional surgery or to go on puberty blockers to exactly avoid the issue of testoterone exposure. The choice those parents will have to face is put them on it at age 12 or 13, when they aren't sure it will stick, or give up their chance to forever play competitive sports. Again, I think that's the wrong incentive. Considering how permanent something even like testosterone blockers are, and considering how many transgendered people come to regret their choice, and considering the big medical malpractice cases now floating around by providers failing to adequately screen for other mental conditions, this is exactly NOT the sophie's choice we want to be putting on parents with kids who may or may not turn out to have this issue.

 

[timmyh]

What I find particularly curious about this entire "debate" is how not a single one of them will acknowledge that a 10 year old trans girl is likely to face tremendous abuse on a boys' team, let alone the abuse they almost always endure outside of kiddie sports. They refuse to acknowledge that the primary reason that 10 year old trans girls are allowed to play on girls teams is because it significantly reduces the risk of abuse, the impact on the girls around her is minimal and, in fact, allowing a 10 year old trans girl to play will likely benefit many of them by helping teach them that inclusion and treating people with dignity and respect is far more important than a trophy or winning a soccer game for 10 year olds. The reality is there are legitimate and, in fact, very important reasons to allow trans children to play on girls' teams. The transphobes cannot acknowledge their legitimacy even if they disagree about how to weigh those arguments, however, because giving legitimacy to those arguments means they must confront the fact that they chose the importance of trophies for their 10 year old daughter over human dignity for a class of people they hold in contempt.

No, I am not transphobic. No, I don't think youth trophies are all that important. Yes, I think calling out a 10 year old is a really, really sorry thing to do.

But shouldn't your vitriol be directed at the "tremendous abuse from boys teams?" Why are you giving them a complete pass for not treating a teammate or opponent with respect and dignity, but a women who has worked hard to, say, swim really fast just got left off the NCAA podium and thus has to be the one to pay the price in the name of "respect and dignity?"

Seems you should turn your turrets to the real problem (respect and dignity from male teammates) instead of sidestepping that with a solution that allows them onto female teams where post-puberty MTF teens and adults clearly have an unmatchable physical advantage that rails against the fundamental reasons of fairness that men and women were separated in sports in the first place.

If your primary reason a MTF athlete should be allowed to play on a women's team is so that the men don't make fun of her, then it seems you're shaking your fist at the wrong cloud and berating the wrong parents.

 

[Grace T.]

No, I am not transphobic. No, I don't think youth trophies are all that important. Yes, I think calling out a 10 year old is a really, really sorry thing to do.

But shouldn't your vitriol be directed at the "tremendous abuse from boys teams?" Why are you giving them a complete pass for not treating a teammate or opponent with respect and dignity, but a women who has worked hard to, say, swim really fast just got left off the NCAA podium and thus has to be the one to pay the price in the name of "respect and dignity?"

Seems you should turn your turrets to the real problem (respect and dignity from male teammates) instead of sidestepping that with a solution that allows them onto female teams where post-puberty MTF teens and adults clearly have an unmatchable physical advantage that rails against the fundamental reasons of fairness that men and women were separated in sports in the first place.

If your primary reason a MTF athlete should be allowed to play on a women's team is so that the men don't make fun of her, then it seems you're shaking your fist at the wrong cloud and berating the wrong parents.

The reason why they should be allowed to compete is because that’s where they feel the most comfortable. The secondary reason is because those on blockers or hormones can no longer keep up with the non impaired males. It flips the burden to those that want to restrict to answer the question: why not?

the answer may very well be different for the pre pubescent mtf, adolescent mtf and post hs mtf as well as what’s at stake in the sport/the level. Also as a reminder every issue that revolves around mtf you have the exact opposite issue for ftm. A clue for whether bigotry is motivating someone is if the answer is kick them both out and there is no rational limiting principle.

 

[Happened again]

The reason why they should be allowed to compete is because that’s where they feel the most comfortable. The secondary reason is because those on blockers or hormones can no longer keep up with the non impaired males. It flips the burden to those that want to restrict to answer the question: why not?

the answer may very well be different for the pre pubescent mtf, adolescent mtf and post hs mtf as well as what’s at stake in the sport/the level. Also as a reminder every issue that revolves around mtf you have the exact opposite issue for ftm. A clue for whether bigotry is motivating someone is if the answer is kick them both out and there is no rational limiting principle.

what ages are we talking about?

This goes way beyond sports...sports participation is such a small fraction of the overall population. With sports - fairness in competition at the highest levels should be a concern..safety etc. Very small population but still a concern...

I love it how people (not targeting you Grace) talk about adminstering puberty blockers and hormone treatment like they are giving out nerds to young, still developing kids. There is minimal research on long term effects. A lot to think about when making a decision to go down this path. Puberty blockers are reversible, hormone treatment not so much.

 

[Grace T.]

what ages are we talking about?

This goes way beyond sports...sports participation is such a small fraction of the overall population. With sports - fairness in competition at the highest levels should be a concern..safety etc. Very small population but still a concern...

I love it how people (not targeting you Grace) talk about adminstering puberty blockers and hormone treatment like they are giving out nerds to young, still developing kids. There is minimal research on long term effects. A lot to think about when making a decision to go down this path. Puberty blockers are reversible, hormone treatment not so much.

 

[Grace T.]

what ages are we talking about?

This goes way beyond sports...sports participation is such a small fraction of the overall population. With sports - fairness in competition at the highest levels should be a concern..safety etc. Very small population but still a concern...

I love it how people (not targeting you Grace) talk about adminstering puberty blockers and hormone treatment like they are giving out nerds to young, still developing kids. There is minimal research on long term effects. A lot to think about when making a decision to go down this path. Puberty blockers are reversible, hormone treatment not so much.

They are both dangerous and carry the risk of long term irreversible damage. The problem is there’s a trade off. For some cases it will be very very obvious from an early age what’s going on. But a portion of even those obvious cases will be wrongly diagnosed. The trade off is also really high….the pressure to diagnose early is because (as some have said) the effects of testosterone are drastic and irreversible…if the mtf is going to have the best shot at a normal life if they insist on doing it better do it early…on the other hand if they get the diagnosis wrong it’s tragic and also irreversible.

that’s why all other things being equal (such as we don’t go after the cheaters) we need to think hard about policies that encourage early transitions. My debate with dad4 has largely circulated with adolescents in youth sports. The standard in college athletics should be harsher and more strict. Presumably if testosterone is the issue, no one would have a problem with a mtf playing youth soccer that goes on hormone blockers before the full freight of puberty hits (if the answer is still no without a limiting principle there’s a possibility bigotry is in fact guiding the person). The question of whether we should allow such treatments is broader than the scope of a youth soccer forum and as I said complicated.

 

[GoldenGate]

No, I am not transphobic. No, I don't think youth trophies are all that important. Yes, I think calling out a 10 year old is a really, really sorry thing to do.

But shouldn't your vitriol be directed at the "tremendous abuse from boys teams?" Why are you giving them a complete pass for not treating a teammate or opponent with respect and dignity, but a women who has worked hard to, say, swim really fast just got left off the NCAA podium and thus has to be the one to pay the price in the name of "respect and dignity?"

Seems you should turn your turrets to the real problem (respect and dignity from male teammates) instead of sidestepping that with a solution that allows them onto female teams where post-puberty MTF teens and adults clearly have an unmatchable physical advantage that rails against the fundamental reasons of fairness that men and women were separated in sports in the first place.

If your primary reason a MTF athlete should be allowed to play on a women's team is so that the men don't make fun of her, then it seems you're shaking your fist at the wrong cloud and berating the wrong parents.

I see. So instead of the Civil Rights Act, we should have just told black children to get their shit together and sit at the front of the bus and at that lunch counter? Yes, it make a ton of sense to tell a 10 year old trans girls to just suck it up and play on a boy's team because making them endure what is likely to be an abusive environment is the best way to change the minds of other 10 year old transphobic shits. Dumping the responsibility for educating transphobes onto children is a really stupid idea. It would be one thing if you could count on every adult involved to treat children with dignity and respect, and to make their children do the same, but this thread alone has shown how much of a fantasy that is. Clearly, a lot of people hold trans children in contempt, so making the trans children suck it in the hope that maybe it will work out is not an acceptable solution. Your proposal also seems to incorrectly assume that gender identity is a bullshit concept.

I am not giving anyone a free pass. If you had any desire to have a legitimate conversation, you would have acknowledged what I've already said about the NCAA swimmer. Once again, whining that a trans child shouldn't be able to play on a soccer team because an adult trans swimmer won an NCAA title is a ridiculously stupid comparison for reasons already stated. If you think that it's fine to treat a 10 year old like shit because you're bitter an adult trans swimmer won a race in a pool, well, yes you are transphobic. If you are living in fear that a post-pubescent 14 year old trans girl will hurt other girls in a soccer game given all the other guardrails in place to prevent that from happening, yes you are transphobic. If you are unwilling to even consider that the unmatchable physical and emotional abuse that trans girls endure is a legitimate factor in determining the circumstances in which trans girls should be allowed to participate in girls sports, then you are transphobic. If you think kiddie trophies are so important that "fundamental fairness" mandates making trans children play with their biological gender without regard to the abuse that will likely result, and you refuse to understand the very simple concept that "fairness" also includes ensuring trans children have the opportunity to play a sport free from abuse, yes, you are transphobic.

 

[timmyh]

Your civil rights analogy is really irrelevant. That was a quest for fundamental equality. This subject is exploring whether enabling fundamental inequality serves a more noble purpose.

I clearly was not talking about 10 year olds. I think you're inclusive stance there is 100% spot on.

I was not talking about "hurting others." I agree that is a silly argument with the sole purpose of justifying exclusion.

I was not talking about kiddie trophies that are largely irrelevant.

I am most certainly willing to consider the abuse teams kids suffer and weigh that against a multitude of other factors.

I was clearly talking about post-pubescent teens and adults. And I think your flamethrowing lacks appropriate nuance in a complicated discussion.

This isn't even a real discussion, because you are so fired up about the obvious transphobes that you aren't reasonably engaging with anyone who might be trying to have a real conversation. You are instead lumping anyone who may not agree with your personal opinion together and trying to score rhetorical points, and it isn't really helping the discourse.

But maybe that's your agenda and I am being trolled by hoping I may learn something that helps refine or change my opinion here.

 

[Kicker 2.0]

But maybe that's your agenda and I am being trolled by hoping I may learn something that helps refine or change my opinion here.

This hits the nail on the head!

 

[dad4]

The question isn't really about youth rec sports. Most trans kids in youth rec can play without destabilizing the game, though some might need to play up a year in order to fit in. You can probably leave it up to the director of the rec program to decide on a case by case basis.

It's becoming an issue for ECNL, and for college.

 

[Grace T.]

The question isn't really about youth rec sports. Most trans kids in youth rec can play without destabilizing the game, though some might need to play up a year in order to fit in. You can probably leave it up to the director of the rec program to decide on a case by case basis.

It's becoming an issue for ECNL, and for college.

There are actually 3 groups here that have to be analyzed separately: preteens, adolescents, and adults. The rules for each will be different. The hardest case is the adolescents. They shouldn't be conflated with adults, because we also have to be mindful of the incentives we are creating.

Here's the reality, though. ECNL is really in the scheme of things not that important. It's not academy ball like the boy's program highest tier. There's no drug testing so we aren't bending over backwards to ensure a level playing field. There's nothing to stop the same balance you propose as for a rec program: play up a year.

Here are the tests with adolescents:
-if you think testosterone is a performance enhancing drug that unbalances the playing field, are you trying to catch the cheaters? Presumably you are also o.k. with those that went on puberty blockers (or more drastically, transitioning) before 12/13/14 playing on the girls side without restrictions?
-if you think it's a genetics thing, are you o.k. with FTM playing in the girls league, even if they are taking testosterone, until they are ready to shift?
-if it's a safety thing, are you in favor of size/weight restrictions on all players, and not just those because of their status?

Because otherwise there may be something motivating the person beyond just concerns about performance, safety or genetics.

 

[Woodwork]

The question isn't really about youth rec sports. Most trans kids in youth rec can play without destabilizing the game, though some might need to play up a year in order to fit in. You can probably leave it up to the director of the rec program to decide on a case by case basis.

It's becoming an issue for ECNL, and for college.

It really isn't becoming an issue of "destabilizing the game" in ECNL. This is made-up, chicken little, fear mongering.

You criticize Grace for arguing in circles but you keep saying the same thing when it just isn't the case.

Let them play where they feel most comfortable in competitive youth leagues. Only call it an issue if it becomes one.