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Transgender Athlete
Note: “Trans” is not the problem.
NOTE: Within this text, wherever gender is not key to the explanation, I am using the Elverson ey/em construction of the Spivak Pronouns.
Many sports are segregated into “Men’s” and “Women’s” leagues. This situation seemed innocuous until individual, seemingly masculine, players began exercising their clear and inalienable authority to define themselves as they see fit. When transgender women sought to practice their athletic prowess in the “Women’s” league, certain fans cried “foul”!
Certainly a surface analysis appears to show this objection to be reasonable. Here is a woman who has spent perhaps twenty years with a muscle-enhancing blood testosterone level far above that of any other player in that sport now seeking to compete with women who have not had that advantage. Doesn’t that disqualify the individual for the women’s league, at least until it can be certified that the metabolic advantage has fully dissipated?
Well, if that is the case, then shouldn’t all athletes be tested to a capability standard in order to assure that none are taking advantage of some other accident of birth such as some genetic predisposition toward a leaner frame or a naturally occurring hormone imbalance?
