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submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

As children across the U.S. head back to classes and practices for fall sports, four more states are expecting their K-12 schools to keep transgender girls off their girls teams.

Kansas, North Dakota and Wyoming had new laws in place restricting transgender athletes before classes resumed, and a Missouri law takes effect at the end of this month, bringing the number of states with restrictions to 23.

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[-] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 months ago

Are there professional high school teams I don't know about? Or are these laws specifically to keep kids from having fun playing sports with zero stakes?

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 37 points 10 months ago

Unfortunately, it's not zero stakes with high school athletes looking to get scholarships and schools making money and funding from football. To say nothing of parental egos. If only it were as easy to sweep under the rug by claiming it isn't worth caring about.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, too. So much of life is nearly divided up into make and female without thinking about what constitutes an advantage. Maybe basketball needs to be divided into two leagues for over and under 6'6". Perhaps hockey should be split by bone density. Or whatever, but my point is gender is a big dividing line for our society and we are attacking that line. It's going to be messy.

I predict the eventual result is to no longer have gendered competitions at all. Which in some ways is good but would likely result in much lower participation by women in certain sports.

I support trans rights and IDGAF about sports, but I don't see any clean way out of this mess. Something fundamental is going to have to change to answer this issue.

[-] howrar@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

Maybe basketball needs to be divided into two leagues for over and under 6'6". Perhaps hockey should be split by bone density. Or whatever,

Maybe not split, but we should take this into account for scoring purposes. In powerlifting, your height (and thus weight) is the main determining factor in how much you can lift. We account for this by using weight classes, but that has the problem of either dividing up everyone so finely that many weight categories in local competitions only comprise of one athlete, or grouping too many people together that competition is no longer fair. There's also the Wilk score (getting replaced last I heard due to some drama. Not sure what they use now), which calculates an overall score based on your exact weight and allows comparisons across weight classes.

So for other sports, we could have something similar to this Wilk score. In basketball for example, it could determine how much each basket is worth for each team based on the composition of the team. It wouldn't be perfect, but it's probably a lot better than dividing across gender lines, and would open up competition to people who enjoy the game but aren't insanely tall.

[-] whynotzoidberg@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

Are there really zero stakes? Does the work a child does in K-12 not impact their opportunities post K-12?

Sex has been a long-standing issue in organized sport. The IOC has their own challenges with it, even.

Club sports, as opposed to organized sports, are more of the “for fun / zero stakes” type of sport IMO.

I wish the issue was more black and white, but holy cow is it a tough one when you dig your heels in.

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago

It's not zero stakes. Just put college scholarships aside for a second. Athletes put everything they have into their game. They make TONS of sacrifices to excel and win. Why don't you ask the girls how they feel about competing against a trans girl? You and I have no skin in the game, so our opinions don't matter much. Right? That's the core message of DEI, that it's our job to listen. So listen to the millions of girls who would be impacted by the decision.

[-] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 months ago

the millions of girls who would be impacted by the decision.

I honestly don't think there are that many trans people. Most of these states likely don't even have a single trans highschool student in the entire state. Trans people are a minority of a minority. I feel like it should almost be a case by case basis.

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago

I meant the non-trans girls who compete in sports. I think there are only about 1000 trans girls, but that number could be wrong. Both numbers are guesses. The point was that there are a lot of girls that could be impacted and they should have an active voice in the decision.

[-] zaph@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

If you think millions of girls in the US are impacted by trans people you've bought more propaganda you think. Much closer to dozens than millions but probably more accurately hundreds. I'm more inclined to protect the girls who would become suicidal because they're being told they don't belong in public but you do you.

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

I meant the non-trans girls who compete in sports. I think there are only about 1000 trans girls, but that number could be wrong. Both numbers are guesses. The point was that there are a lot of girls that could be impacted and they should have an active voice in the decision.

[-] zaph@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I know what you meant and there aren't millions of cis girls impacted by trans girls. That number is a massive inflation to make the impact seem more worrisome. It's called fear mongering.

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That wasn't my intent and I think you realize that but are still choosing to ignore the actual point, so you win.

[-] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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