Some of the leagues have roster caps (I think for ECNL it's high at 28). Given the substitution rules, they can't however play all of them. ECNL tries to make this up (claims its because they care about development) by allowing players to play up but realistically what coach is going to play up some of his best players and risk a loss? MLS Next, particularly the academy teams but also some of the regular club teams, solves this by some players just don't have an expectation to play, and some players (say the 3rd goalkeeper) don't even get to dress.
Trans eligibility rules for girls sports.
- Thread starter dad4
- Start date
GoldenGate
GOLD
I see, so you're admitting the entire issue of "safety" is a bullshit one since you're cool with trans girls playing rec. So your real issue is that you just don't want trans girls playing in whatever league you say so. And that is because you get to decide which kiddie soccer trophies are just too important?
So why can a director of a rec program decide when it is ok but the directors of comp programs cannot? Again, it all comes back to you and your daughter's fragile egos and your kid's lack of athletic ability. Honestly, it sounds to me like she's the one who needs to be in a rec league. I'm happy to send participation trophies your way if it helps.
The trouble is the space, not the existence.
I also object to 15 years olds who exist in the space of U14 teams. This doesn't mean you need to start calling me a "fifteenphobe".
You are literally drawing artificially drawn borders to come up with a particular "space". You unknowingly have stumbled into an absolutely great analogy that works against you. You are yelling "no this is my space, stay out" instead of questioning why the space should be a circle rather than a square.
Happened again
SILVER ELITE
Because probably that's now how it would work. And lay off the transphobe comments, it's a weak diversion.
We can what aboutism this to death. A high performing post pubescent male is going to wreak havoc on any girls team. He will wreak havoc on the field. I suppose this is where puberty blockers and hormone therapy comes in. Complicated issue...regardless, post pubescent XY is likely to have an unfair advantage over XX...it's just biology. Puberty blockers and hormone treatment aside.
I love it when an argument gets thrown out the door once societal/cultural issues come into play. Again, not transphobe - if that's what you want to label me , then please pound sand
I mean, did you watch swimming the last 6 months? post pubescence development is not reversible...shoulder, hip bone density doesn't go away...you can certainly mess with it pre-pubescent, but not post.
Ulittle coed play..sure...coed league after 14/15..sure..
Did you mean to reply to my post? Your post doesn't seem to follow. I don't believe I labeled Dad4 it. In fact, Dad4 more or less acknowledged it didn't matter whether the trans player was a good fit and not particularly high-performing on a team, it is enough that the trans player took a non-trans player's fault. I appreciate Dad4 because he at least seems to have a coherent enough grasp of where the conversation is going to allow us to find to root of our disagreement.
Grace also goes to the heart of it by saying, sure we have these lines, but can they be drawn somewhere else more sensibly. Fair point.
On the other hand, you are back to some other part of the argument that my post wasn't focused on. You are talking about the idea that some elite soccer player from the boys' side is going transition then come in and "wreak havoc." I'm not labeling you as a person, but I see this level of speculation as fear mongering until we actually see it happen in ECNL, the highest level of youth girls soccer. Theoretically, sure. Just, in reality, why make a bunch of rules and legislate and lobby and get all upset and exhaust energy over something that isn't actually happening? We wait until we see what it looks like, then we can see whether something needs to be fixed or whether it works itself out.
As a staunch republican, I'm all for letting the free market work itself out and for people to figure it out without authorities always sticking their noses in. I'm also for my daughter having to deal with some real challenges, even unfair ones, without her reacting like a whiny baby. Life ain't fair. Oh, I'm sorry, one little trans kid took your bally? Call the whaaaambulance. I'll be darned if she can come crying to me. Get back up and play harder.
Well that’s the problem with a one size fits all policy. You are raising the worst case (a high performing mtf not on hormones or puberty blockers that goes in and wrecks the girls). The one case I’m familiar with (not soccer) was a mtf who was diagnosed when she was 7 and while a decent runner was pretty much indistinguishable from a girl with no upper body strength relative to the high performing boys. That argues for granting committees discretion for the best fit (but that would also spill over to boys and girls who are early/late bloomer and the possibility for corruption is high). And there should therefore be no objection to a mtf that goes on puberty blockers or has surgery before going through puberty…correct?
you Also can’t throw in an elite swimmer to this. What happens in elite college sports has very little impact on an ecnl team sport where we aren’t doing testosterone testing. The rules might very well be different for both.
Happened again
SILVER ELITE
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
SILVER ELITE
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
PREMIER
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
BRONZE
There is a reason we created womens/mens and girls/boys categories.
GoldenGate
GOLD
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
SILVER ELITE
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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.
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.
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
BRONZE
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.
5 scholarships vs 18 scholarships? You're manipulating the numbers to advance your argument.