I have the same knee jerk reaction - we don't need top down governance every time something happens that seems unfair. But it seems like stories of new records being set keep appearing every so often. Maybe it's just people on this board that are obsessed - because that's where I hear about it, but each of these stories seem like a case where common sense didn't prevail, and things carried along to the point of unfairness. I don't want to overreact to a little unfairness, but I also don't think we shouldn't let it be persistent (if it is actually persistent.)
Like Covid, it is something that starts as something small, nearly insignificant.
How long until this impacts the Olympics? With all the drugs teams have given women to improve their performance, why would they not instead take the males who place...say...5th? and worse... have them undergo Trans surgery so they can go win the women's side of the sport?
And what about a sport with males and females on the same team? As a loose example, Pairs Figure Skating...where having the part of the female being a Trans provides an advantage?
To think nations will not pursue such things if they are allowed is naive at best. All of it diminishes women's power, pride, and identity.
Not saying Trans do not deserve to compete, just do it in the appropriate category, a 3rd category. They claim they want to be supported, respected, and allowed to be identified without discrimination... so why should they desire to hide who they are? If they are going to be truly respected, it can only happen through accepting them for who they are. They are not genetic women, they are Trans. I fully accept that. I've worked side by side with several and never discriminated against them.
And that's the thing Champ does not get. Identifying them for who they are is not discriminating against them, it is accepting them for who they are and the choices they have made. It is also respecting and identifying genetic women for who they are. Each person should be accepted and allowed to be who they choose. But a man deciding to become Trans does not make them a woman, it makes them a Trans... and that's OK.
Don't remove the T from LGBTQ+. Accept it, acknowledge it. Allow it. And that means providing them their own category for sports competitions. Champ views it as a discriminatory thing, it is not. It is an acknowledgment thing. It is an acceptance thing. It is providing them equal status that they deserve to have, and preserves the equal status that genetic women deserve.
I've always supported the concept of a Women's Rights Amendment, though I understand that enough laws have passed now that basically have resulted in the equivalence of that. But I still support the concept of it. I would equally support an Amendment for Trans to be considered an equal, 3rd gender identification group.
