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.
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.
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.