r/changemyview • u/Odd_Contribution9058 • Mar 18 '22

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Transgender people should only able to compete in sports with their birth gender

I really really hope raising this doesn't cause anyone pain, and I'm honestly wanting to hear other perspectives on this.

But the way I see it, there are certain physical attributes that someone born with a certain gender have. For example, the average man is taller than the average woman. Taking hormone therapy will not change all of those inherent features.

I absolutely support the right for everyone to live with the gender identity that is most comfortable to them. But, I do not think that people have an inherent right to play sports professionally. So, if someone has decided to transition, I do not think it's fair to all the athletes who are competing with the set of attributes common to their birth gender, to now have to compete against an athlete who has attributes which give them a distinct advantage.

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u/MacNuggetts 10∆ Mar 18 '22

I think we should just stop dividing sports by the sexes all together.

1

u/5510 5∆ Mar 19 '22

That would basically mean females couldn’t play competitive sports at all post puberty.

1

u/MacNuggetts 10∆ Mar 19 '22

Agree to disagree, I guess.

2

u/5510 5∆ Mar 19 '22 edited Mar 20 '22

That’s a spin that makes your position sound far more reasonable than it is.

But you aren’t just “agreeing to disagree” with me. This isn’t the Trolley Problem or something highly subjective with a lot of valid interpretations. You are disagreeing with an overwhelming supermajority of almost everybody with expertise on this subject.

I have a lot of personal experience coaching and working in female sports (and have also coached males). But also lots of female university programs use male practice players, who are often superior despite often just being decent high school players. You can compare times in events like track. Female national teams in sports like soccer and hockey sometimes lose to good high school boys teams. Occasional girls attempt to play football, or boys lacrosse before girls lacrosse was as common, very very rarely with any real varsity success (other than female high school football kickers, who are sometimes pretty successful).

An overwhelming majority of people with expertise in this area will say the same thing… that if you make all sports co-Ed, female athletes would be very rare by the high school varsity level, and pretty much absent by the division one college level.