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- cross-posted to:
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Florida’s state athletic board fined a high school and put it on probation Tuesday after a transgender student played on the girls volleyball team, a violation of a controversial law enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature.
The Florida High School Athletic Association fined Monarch High $16,500, ordered the principal and athletic director to attend rules seminars and placed the suburban Fort Lauderdale school on probation for 11 months, meaning further violations could lead to increased punishments. The association also barred the girl from participating in boys sports for 11 months.
The 2021 law, which supporters named “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” bars transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes identified as girls at birth.
The student, a 10th grader who played in 33 matches over the last two seasons, was removed from the team last month after the Broward County School District was notified by an anonymous tipster about her participation. Her removal led hundreds of Monarch students to walk out of class two weeks ago in protest.
If not, then why is there separate mens and womens teams at all?
Bimodal distribution, the fact these overlap seems to defeat people. But at the extremes of performance, the overlap is greatly reduced or entirely eliminated. Sexual dimorphism is very pronounced in humans, and we definitely need to separate the sexes in the vast majority of competitive sports. Anyone claiming otherwise is denying reality, which they’re free to do, but I am free to disagree with their conclusion. I expect to be called a fascist for my position, which is very silly.
What is the distribution of athletic performance in volleyball between 14 year olds and an 18 year olds? In high school volleyball, it’s perfectly possible for a team made of all 18 year olds who are 6 feet tall to play a team that is all 14 year olds that are 5 feet tall. The idea that without the participation of trans girls, high school volleyball is completely equitable is ridiculous. High school sports are for fun, learning teamwork and discipline, and fitness. Who wins a high school volleyball game is not important. Certainly it’s not more important than the health and safety of trans girls - and non-gender-conforming cis girls who have been and will continued to be tortured by laws like this.
Is it common for a varsity team to be playing a freshman team? That wasn’t the case with football.
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In competitive youth swimming, which I did as a child, the age groups are like 11-12, 13-14, 15-16. So, it was possible for someone who was 12 a week ago to swim against someone who turns 15 next week - a HUGE difference in terms of physical development. And if your birthday happens to fall in the weeks before the big championship meet every year, you are always at the bottom or middle of your age bracket for your entire childhood, never at the top. But the specifics don’t even matter. Age groups and grade classifications are to try to make things a little more fair so that little kids aren’t swimming against basically adults. But it’s not in any way perfectly fair. And also, it doesn’t matter! Let kids play sports and get the benefits of that activity. Your kid’s team winning - or losing - some sports game in 10th grade doesn’t matter. Keeping this girl from playing volleyball isn’t fixing any problem. In Utah they made a ban and there were literally 4 trans athletes in the entire state. It’s culture war bullshit. And people who start quoting bone density studies or whatever are either falling for it or willingly participating in it.
Competitive Hockey was the same way. But we were also allowed to “play up” if we were good enough to get on an older team. So it did have some balancing in that regard. For private competitive sports in the high school age brackets we should be using the same rules as the professional leagues. Because that’s where people go to get noticed by the scouts and train intensively to play at high levels.
But in high school teams? Those should be the same rules as the friendly leagues where nobody cares. It’s about having fun and not much else. Winning definitely isn’t the point at a school.
It’s sounds like we’re fundamentally in agreement, but I don’t even see the big deal if every once in a while there is one trans girl playing in a competitive youth league. Sure you could argue that there’s only so many spots on the team, so maybe some cis girl who would have made it loses out. But if you’re the 20th best player and you get cut because there’s one trans girl? I mean, you’re the 20th best player, you’re probably not going to be at the top of the recruiters list. I just feel like this time is so fraught for trans people. There are so many powerful forces literally trying to destroy them, I really don’t think we need to worry about hypothetical potential future slippery slopes in kids athletics. Once trans people feel safe, and ideologues aren’t using sports as a wedge issue to promote anti-trans panic, I’m sure we can come up with equitable solutions for these edge cases.
That’s a really good point. And if the league being scouted for doesn’t allow trans players then the scouts are just going to skip to the next best player.
Yes. It absolutely happens. Especially if the school can’t field two teams.
In my experience youth sports at all levels are also there in order to put band-aids on the fragile egoes of adults.
Yes, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading these comments.
Could this be handled with greater jv and varsity leagues?
Like instead of men’s and women’s, it’s just jv and varsity. If you aren’t that great, you’re in jv. If your stronger/faster/whatever you can try out for varsity.
Changing the name or the perception of the “jv” team maybe?
Sure. In professional sports where they’re training intensively. In High School it’s a bit ridiculous. Getting a winning record isn’t the point of sports at that level. It’s just another mode of teaching.
I suppose, although you’d still expect the skill distribution to follow the same pattern in this smaller population, i.e., school or college. So on average you’d be forcing girls out of sports teams.
Assuming you didn’t just field extra teams?
Sure, but I’m asking about when there isn’t. some sports those things make a difference, but others they do not.
Something else came to mind while reading this article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/09/sports-gender-sex-segregation-coed/671460/
This is what I’ve experienced in roller derby. The only thing carrying me is that I was taught how to ice skate and play hockey since I was 4. Again, pointing to a socializing aspect rather than a “gendered” thing.
It’s an antiquated tradition, but the field of athletics isn’t exactly known for embracing progress and change
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Thanks for demonstrating, you sound just like the transphobes
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I used to actually try to reason with people like you, with citations and ethical appeals – the whole nine yards.
But you know what I learned? You can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.
No matter what anyone says, you lot really want to use those skull calipers, and ain’t no data, logic, or ethics going to stop you.
And yes, it’s absolutely bigoted and sexist to imply that activities should be segregated by gender. That’s objectively a bigoted opinion. You just don’t want to admit it, because it would mean you choose to be a bad person.
Again, you won’t let something like an objective fact stop you, so far be it from me to waste my time with people like you.
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Don’t worry about it. You’re 100% right and they know it. They read your rebuttal and realized that they couldn’t counter so instead just settled for “Ya. Not reading that.”
Even the NHL, not exactly known for being forward thinking or progressive, allows women to participate. In fact a woman has played a professional game in the NHL.
I’m not reading that
I’m happy for you, though
or sorry that happened
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It’s really not a bigoted position; it’s about protecting women.
I should say, for some people I’m sure it’s about bigotry. But personally I think it’s an important feminist issue, since biological women could be playing alongside people that have gone through male puberty. That has the potential to be unreasonably dangerous as well as unfair to those who’ve been through female puberty, on average.
Remember this is about demographic averages, and it remains true that some/many biological women could annihilate some/many biological men in many physical endeavours. It’s that bimodal distribution again. Not anymore bigoted than, unfortunately, reality is.
Ew, a TERF. Blocked and reported.
The funny part is volleyball is a perfect example of how to separate men’s and women’s sports. The women’s net is 8 inches lower than the men’s. The men are still faster/stronger and hit harder, and the women’s games are still fun to watch. Why not alter the playing field since the sexes aren’t physically equal? Make the NBA hoop lower, make the women’s soccer field smaller. There is a lot that can be done.
Not sure. Here’s a good journal article discussing it.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24757601
Tradition. Because some people can’t handle that little Billy is never going to play at a higher level than the high school team?
All sorts of reasons. None of them are good though.