The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announced a policy Monday that all but bans transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports at its 241 mostly small colleges across the country.
The NAIA Council of Presidents approved the policy in a 20-0 vote at its annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri. The NAIA, which oversees some 83,000 athletes competing in more than 25 sports, is believed to be the first college sports organization to take such a step.
According to the transgender participation policy, all athletes may participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports but only athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and have not begun hormone therapy will be allowed participate in women’s sports.
A student who has begun hormone therapy may participate in activities such as workouts, practices and team activities, but not in interscholastic competition.
Can trans men compete in men’s sports? Because I’m always told that “women” can compete in men’s sports if they want, but they don’t have the athletic abilities. So what about trans men? They could be taking hormones that increase their muscle mass. So they can play basketball with the men despite not having a penis, right?
Also, can we stop making such a big fucking deal about sports, especially college sports, as if it were anything other than a form of entertainment?
Until college is free college athletics are a major way low income kids can get a college education. Everyone in college sports isn’t thinking about getting drafted into the NBA or NFL. Most are just trying to find a way to pay for college that doesn’t stick them with thousands of dollars of debt.
So they are a BIG deal
They are a big deal for the same reason rich people’s charities are a big deal- government has failed the poor. Athletics should not be a way into college just because you have a physical advantage over other poor people. There is nothing equitable about that. That is, in my opinion, not a defense of college athletics and more than it’s a defense of the Salvation Army.
I agree but as of now our system is what it is. So I personally think it’s less productive to complain about college sports instead of our broken education system.
I would also say that conflating the fact that specific college sports are taken way too seriously and made way too big a deal of doesn’t reflect athletic scholarships as a whole, considering people don’t go crazy about college wrestling or college field sports. When was the last time you heard of a college pole vault star? If there were some sort of “scandal” involving a transgender person in women’s college pole vault, would we even hear about it?
Yes, trans men can and do compete with cis men. It’s not talked about as much because the concern is usually about fairness, and those concerns just aren’t there with trans men. If you’re not able to transition when other boys are going through puberty, you’re always going to be behind on muscle mass, and taking extra hormones to catch up is going to get you banned from competing for the same reason taking steroids will get a cis man banned.
Also, why are you putting women in quotes?
Because trans women are allowed to compete in men’s sports and cis women are not. So only certain types of woman are allowed as if trans women were not women. Hence the quotes.
That’s not true. Several cis women play college and professional baseball. The same is true of endurance sports or ones where skill or intelligence are more important than strength. In pretty much every major sport, cis women are absolutely allowed to compete with men, but strength is so important in those sports that being more skilled isn’t enough to make up for the physical disadvantage.
What cis women play in the NBA?
There are none, and I literally just told you why. In sports like basketball, strength is so important that being more skilled than a man isn’t enough to overcome the physical disadvantage women have. It’s not that women are banned from the NBA.
The ability to jump really high is the obvious example in the NBA. Plenty of women are tall. There are plenty who can handle a ball and shoot at that level. But it’s incredibly rare for women to dunk, and that’s something everyone in the NBA can do. Spud Webb, at 5’7", could do it so well he won the slam dunk contest in '86. Meanwhile, only 8 women in the history of the WNBA have done it, and the vast majority of those dunks belong to Brittney Griner, who’s 6’9".
Several cis women play college and professional baseball.
That is what you said.
And you asked about the NBA, which is basketball.
In baseball, there’s a long history of women playing with men. Lizzie Murphy played in the minors in the 20s. Jackie Mitchel struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in the 30s while playing in the Southern League. Toni Stone, Connie Morgan, and Mamie Johnson played in the Negro Leagues in the 50s. Ila Borders pitched for the St. Paul Saints in the 90s. Eri Yoshida pitched in several men’s leagues over the last decade or so. Stacy Piagno played in the Pacific League a few years ago. Kelsie Whitmore is currently playing in the Atlantic League. There are also several women currently coaching men at the highest levels - Justine Siegal, Bianca Smith, Rachel Balkovec, Alyssa Nakken, Sarah Edwards.
It seems like most discussions around trans people are centered around trans women.
That was sort of my point, yes.
Similarly, the “trans people should be in the changing room that fits their biological sex” ignores the fact that it means that women will have to share changing rooms with men like him:
That’s Patricio Manuel. He’s a boxer who is somehow able to box professionally. With other men. And I never hear anyone complaining about it. I don’t even remember it being an issue.
I’m really curious how the majority of cis women feel about this. You’re medically limiting a person’s potential and promising they’ll be competitive but not dominant. I’ve heard there’s no difference, physically. But also that in some cases records have been shattered.
Trans women aren’t these hulking beasts that the right portray. But I can understand people being uncomfortable when athletes are so competitive. But also women, cis and trans, just want to play sports.
I remember a similar (but definitely different) conversation had about a runner with a prosthetic leg too.
They’ve punished cis women athletes for having naturally higher testosterone levels, so it’s all fucking bullshit anyway. You have to portray what they feel is an appropriate biological woman (ha!), which is super awkward for those of us without that ‘look’ who are now viewed with suspicion. God forbid you have a hormone insensitivity or non-XX/XY chromosome arrangement.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57748135
Holy shit. They’re literally just saying she’s too good to compete. That’s not even close to a grey area. That’s a cis woman’s female natural body.
I don’t know where I stand on medically inhibited or boosted bodies when it comes to competitive sports. But shit like this makes me just say the fewer restrictions the better and defer to athletes being able to play.
You gotta keep in mind, she’s also African.
There’s a 0% chance the rules would get changed if a white person was beating all the black people.
There was a football player named Tom Dempsey who had half a foot. Because of this, he had a special shoe that had a flat front and was basically a sledgehammer. And he was a kicker. He held the distance record for field goals for years. But they changed the rules to say you had to have a normal toe on your kicking shoe. Just some similar sports trivia I guess.
But also women, cis and trans, just want to play sports.
Nobody is stopping them from playing sports.
Uh… that’s exactly what’s happening.
I think they mean that trans women are allowed to play with the men. So they’re technically allowed to participate. Even though realistically they can’t, just like any woman can’t play with men 99.999% of the time.
“It’s unfair to have trans athletes compete with women!”
It’s unfair when I play basketball against LeBron, as well.
Bigoted people are making it about competition while holding onto the archaic division between men and women.
They could create other criteria and have 3, 4 … Separate groups. Making sports much fairer. But this is about oppression, not fairness.
If the NCAA really cared about fairness they would do something about the suspect and wildly inconsistent officiating.
Or, and this is wild I know. We can stop treating student athletes like professionals. We made this problem but schools were never supposed to be some kind of professional league with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line for schools.
Simply create trans categories for sports. One for mtf and another for ftm. This is the fairest option to all. Remember, the gender categories in sport exist not because of outdated sexist beliefs, but to ensure a literal fair playing field.
It would be a pretty lonely competition, there arent that many trans athletes.
Sports are divided by gender, because it’s easy. It has been done that way for a long time.
But how is a long jump competition between a 1,50m and a 1,90m woman fair?
It’s not.
People who want fairness should see past easy binary characteristics. We are tracking hormone levels, muscle mass, body fat and countless other statistics in professional sports. Why can’t we divide athletes in 3, 4, or more different groups?
Why don’t all the people in support of trans people in sports just host their own events?
That way they can make their own rules.
1947: It’s not fair that they want to add black people to white baseball leagues, what if they’re better than the white players! Why don’t all the people in support of black people just host their own sporting events? This is totally unfair.
2024: it’s not fair that they want to add trans women to cis women’s sports leagues. What if they’re better than the cis female players! Why don’t all the people in support of trans people just host their own events?
2124: it’s not fair that they want to add [insert minority social group with limited population, power, and resources] to [thing majority group cares about keeping control of]. What if they [improve the overall product or system]? Why don’t all the people that support [minority group] make a special [thing] just for them?
It’s important to consider that this is not the first time society freaked out about who was allowed to pay in which sports league. It turned out fine last time, better, in fact.
For some reason, I don’t believe the headline at face value.
It’s probably because I’ve seen so much misinformation and disingenuous rhetoric surrounding trans women in sports.
Everyone seems to be lying to support an agenda.
Have you tried reading the whole article instead of only the headline? That usually helps to glean some context and form an informed opinion instead of just guessing. That’s what works for me, at least.
Here’s the relevant bit, but I really do recommend reading the whole thing!
According to the transgender participation policy, which goes into effect in August, all athletes may participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports but only athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and have not begun hormone therapy will be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
A student who has begun hormone therapy may participate in activities such as workouts, practices and team activities, but not in intercollegiate competition.
“All but banned” is certainly a subjective phrase, but reading the article I’d have to agree. What do you think?
