this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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Even that I don't get. Why not just make a bunch of leagues to separate people by skill, and let everyone play in whatever league they fit in skill whise regardless of gender.
That completely eliminates the problem with trans womens "unfair advantage" when playing in the womens league too.
Because then there wouldn't be women competing in the top leagues of many sports. Men have a huge physical advantage. On marathons, for instance, there's a >10 minute gap. And people cannot watch each of these separate leagues, they usually want to watch the best in any sports class. It also wouldn't motivate women to play amateur sports if they get completely destroyed by most men.
The current sex-based split is imo still the fairest, though it does indeed cause some issues. The naming might not be ideal. The male class is basically the "open" class. Anyone can compete in it whenever they want. The women's class exists solely to give people who have not recently been under the influence of testosterone and other male hormones a chance to compete with other people with their body type. That's not only women, but should also allow for AFAB non-binary and trans guys as long as they haven't started T.
I'm a man and I will never be able to comoete in the top mens league either.
But I like how it works in boxing, where there's a light-weight class where I could compete fairly. That's what I was thinking of
But weight doesn't mean anything. An equal weight man and woman will still be in a totally different class. Also, it's not about what you can do now, but about your potential. Someone who is currently physically within the "male range" will have to do way less to achieve the same performance as someone within the "female range". Mixing them together would be very demotivating to anyone not in the "male range" physically since they'd have to work insanely hard to even beat the less serious men.
Note: I'm using "male/female range" rather than man/woman because gender doesn't necessarily align with physical build.
Source? I'm afab and fucking sick of being told this with a flimsy hand wave of 'biology'. Give me some stats.
You need a source to know that a man and woman at the same weight class would be advantageous to the man?
For it to be considered an empirically true statement, yes.
That is why I wrote "skill based" in my top comment, the weight classes where just an example
Or weight classes
Yeah that's exactly what I mean
Why not make leagues separated by performance only? Because when talented women work hard to excel at a sport, they deserve recognition for that beyond merely being allowed to compete with people who have testosterone increasing their physical abilities.
I compete in Taekwon-Do tournaments, and I train others to compete. I have a really badass young woman who trains really hard, and on top of it all she's extremely talented. If she keeps it up, after a few years she could be up there with the best in the world... among women. ALSO she literally won the [redacted because I realized someone could find her name lol, it's a small sport with few seriously competitive people] women's world championship for the US, just as a side project. That girl cannot compete with men at a high level. I'm still leagues below the guys who go to the world championships, never mind win them. I would blow her and her competition out of the water if you made me seriously compete with them. She deserves an environment where she can compete with people at the same weight class and born with a similar enough body, and when she wins she deserves to be called the best. Not "congratulations, you're good enough to spar with the lower end of the guys."
Isn't that exactly what I proposed? There's lots of women (and men) that aren't born extremely talented, that don't build muscle easily etc.
Don't they deserve to compete against people of similar abilities too? 'Cause seperating by gender only doesn't help them one bit
No, it's not "exactly what you proposed." Your proposal would see a system where women would never reach the top tier of any physical sport, perhaps with few exceptions. There would always be a tier out of reach, and believe it or not it means a lot to know that winning is achieveable. This idea is so detrimental to a woman who wants to seriously compete in anything.
In fact, comparing a talented, hard-working woman to a man without the same level of talent or effort is such an insult. "They both have a disadvantage, one was born short and lazy, and the other was born a woman." It's not the same.
Also people who aren't talented and who don't put in extraordinary effort have lots of spaces to compete with each other. Co-ed leagues exist and they're lots of fun. Amateur leagues exist too, at different levels of competitiveness, for those who are competitive but like you said can't hack it at a professional level. But just because those spaces exist doesn't mean that should be enough for women who are inspired to be the best.
I give up, go play a sport.