Thoughts on Trans Kids in Sports

Preface: This blog is called "It's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong"... I feel like this is probably one of the posts which will earn the moniker.

There's an issue in today's society: people, and increasingly more young people, are deciding that the gender which they biologically have is not representative of the gender they wish to be. Now, before I even get to the main point of this post, in the interest of being more complete about my view on the baseline context, I'm going to break down that sentence, and clarify where I disagree with some of the "politically correct" views on the subject.

First, I think people have a biological gender (generally speaking). I'm aware, of course, that biological gender is not 100% binary: there are people with extra chromosomes, there are varying levels of expression of gender (and genes in general), there are a small percentage of people with somewhat more ambiguous gender, etc. However, the vast majority of people have a fairly objective and easy to quantify biological gender, and it's possible to establish a metric for what someone's binary biological gender would be (setting aside for the moment the question of whether or not such a qualification is beneficial for any particular discussion or purpose).

Second, I think the broad talking-point of "gender identification" could, and probably should, be encapsulated in the concept of what someone's wishes are. That is, while it may certainly be a "strongly held belief" that one is "internally" a specific gender, or "accidentally assigned" the wrong gender, or "destined to be" the desired gender, all of these are rationalizations of a desire to be a gender. And to that point, that desire can be fixed, or it can be fluid, as can be seen in case studies.

Side note: This is in contrast to, for example, sexual attraction, which appears to be "baked into" genetics, and not voluntary or fluid.

Side note #2: This is probably deserving of a larger topic, but I think gender identity is fluid in large part because gender identity itself is predominantly a social construct. Studies have shown, for example, that more people wish they were male in societal situations where males had more freedoms and/or societal respect, and visa versa in societal situations where females were more revered. This is not the only motivational factor for gender identification, of course, but it seems that most of the identification motivations are strongly associated with societal gender norms, and there would be substantially less feelings of "misassignment" if societal gender norms were more accommodating to the desired gender-related behaviors and traits.

So with that out of the way, we come to the main point: how should youth organizations, and in particular schools, handle trans kids who want to play sports? Well, some thoughts...

Sports are historically segmented by gender. This is not for political purposes, bur rather for practical competitive reasons. Genetics are not politically correct, and genetically male people are (on average) bigger, stronger, and faster than genetically female people. For purposes of allowing more fair and equitable competition, most sports leagues have separate male and female leagues as a result of this. This is, predominantly, to allow more inclusive competition for female players; without this distinction, most sports would be dominated by only male players, and female players would be entirely excluded at higher levels of competition.

In today's world of arbitrary gender-identity and hormone treatments, however, the traditional line becomes blurred. After all, we cannot simultaneously agree that a biological male who wishes to be treated as a female (and may or may not have chemical treatments to augment that wish) is a female, while excluding said person from activities which we reserve only for females. On the other hand, allowing anyone who wishes to identify as a female to compete in female leagues would obviate the purpose of female leagues (ie: as a way to allow genetically female participants to compete at the highest levels in the league); see the reason female leagues exist.

Thus, as I see it, there are two broad approaches to resolve this issue: we can eliminate female leagues entirely, or we can rely on biological gender to assign participation in such. The former is the cleanest solution to the issue (in terms of preserving gender identity and allowing the most equitable outcome), but it would eliminate genetically female persons from most competitive sports programs. The latter would require an acknowledgement of the biological gender among the people pushing for transgender acceptance, and a "stepping back" from the idea of full gender fluidity and actuality in the trans community.

I think the latter of those is probably preferable for the society. That is, I see the separation of sports leagues by gender as a societally beneficial program to allow more participation in activities and opportunity to have more competitive opportunities for people in such. I grant that gender is a fairly arbitrary distinction (you could just as easily have a basketball league for people under six feet tall, for example), but I think the preservation of those leagues is probably preferable to the dissolution of those distinctions and leagues entirely.

That opinion stated, I fully admit this approach would require a shift in how trans people are classified and perceived in society: there would need to be an acknowledgement of biological and "chosen" gender, with both designations factoring into treatment and qualifications. This is abhorrent to a lot of people in the trans community, who want to be fully accepted as their chosen gender, and I would regret any additional discrimination they might face as a result. However, I think it's probably the right solution for a lot of societal dilemmas which this movement presents, and very possibly a necessary step to get past those debates.

Finally, as alluded to before, my hope is that as gender identity in societal constructs becomes less prevalent, this issue of feeling like alternative gender identity is necessary becomes less prevalent. That is, I would hope that if people felt free to act as they wanted regardless of biological gender (affects, clothing, appearance, behavior, etc.), and society did not place expectations on any of those things based on biological gender, that would substantially reduce the instances of feelings of gender misidentification. This is, in my opinion, the good "longer term" solution to the societal problem: people should not need to feel like they need to be another gender, just to act in ways we currently associate with the other gender as a societal construct. At the point where we have true gender fluidity in a societal construct sense, then the biological gender distinction just becomes a way to have more inclusiveness in activities for which competitive level is biased by genetics (as opposed to a political fighting point), and that would be a much better state.

Anyway, as always, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.