Kady M.
3 min readMay 12, 2022

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"There is nothing fair in competitive sports."

If you allow the perfect to the enemy of the practical, true. But the physiological differences between females (generally around 1-5%) are minor compared to the vast physiolgical differences between males and females (generally around 10-50%). This is why sex-based segmentation exists. It is irrational to argue that because we accept the minor differences between females that female sport must also accept the major differences between males and females in the female divisions. So we don't.

"Women who participate in NCAA Athlletics train, practice, workout and are more physically fit than the average woman. If Lia Thomas was so much more physically above than her fellow women swimmers why did she only win one race?"

For the same reason Michael Phelps could never have won the 50 freestyle in the Olympics, although he won the 200 freestyle; athletes have events they are physiologically optimized for; Thomas won the one event that she was physiolgically optimized for that that level.

"There are over 460K student athletes and only 32 trans athletes have competed in the college level. That is 0.0070%, that is too low to even worry about."

You're free to not worry about it. Others care about integrity of competition. And if you care about integrity of competition, you realize that there can be no exceptions to competitive rules, or else the rules are useless.

"Everyone that is so up and arms about trans women in sports including you are camouflaging their transphobia with their cries of fairness."

This is a bad faith argument. Izak Henig, a transman, took 5th in the 100 free at the same meet. Nobody batted an eye, because Henig had decided to postpone HRT (even though he had had top surgery) so he could fairly compete in the female division.

The issue here is not transwomen. It doesn't matter squat if the unfairness comes from being born male, from taking PEDs, from wearing swim fins, or pulling on the ropes during a race. That's reality.m

"Their no such thing as fairness."

As I said above, true in one sense. But we govern our sport to insure that egregious and artificial instances of of unfairness do not occur. This is one of them.

"All we can do is try to level the playing as best we could. I am a firm believer in having a trans woman compete in the women's catagory only after being on HRT for at least 18 months and their hormone levels equal to the average athlete."

Well, USA Swimming has already changed their rules. The transwoman must demonstrate < 5nm testosterone for 36 months (implying that HRT has been in place for 42-48 months, since T levels don't drop overnight).

"I am all for the NCAA leveling the playing field but at the same time safe guarding the health of the trans athlete. The better argument is not fairness but leveling the playing field so all sports can be inclusive not exclusive."

There is no threat either way to the health of the transathlete, so I don't know why you're raising it.

And you nailed it --- the choice is between fairness or inclusivity. You can't have both.

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Kady M.
Kady M.

Written by Kady M.

Free markets/free minds. Question all narratives. If you think one political party is perfect and the other party is evil, the problem with our politics is you.

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