Trans and sport - so what would be fair?

[SleepWhatSleep1]

So if trans women have an unfair advantage in sport against women, but so do trans men - what's the fair solution?

Would it be fair to say that an unfortunate "side affect" of transition is that you can never compete in a sport that is normally sex(gender) segregated? Can practice it, but not compete above say amateur club level?

Or would you say that all trans people have to compete in the "men's" - which would obviously be very outing, and wouldput the trans athletes at a disadvantage and so potentially discriminating.

What would be the fair solution?

The USA provides us with a good example regarding football / soccer too: if girls are encouraged to be sporty, it will be soccer. It's very much seen as a girls game once children hit their teens - the boys play it until they are able to play American football.

At family gatherings, Americans are more likely to throw around an American football or a baseball than kick a ball around. Or there is the ubiquitous basketball hoop over the garage door (yes, they really do exist, not just as a cliche on TV)

But, as we saw upthread when the very top level, professional American women's soccer team played a good U15 boys team, the women were comprehensively weaker.

Interesting stuff, thanks for the links Olennas. I don't think there is much disagreement between the relative differences between sexes as a whole. I suppose I'm just wondering whether these differences are as significant as typically made out. I'll have a wade through the info. you've provided in a bit more detail... ...could take some time though!

Mostlybowling, again interesting about football/soccer. I suppose what made me think (and this will show my age!) is that comparing some male pro footballers, there is obviously a huge variation in size, build and shape. Compare Sol Campbell with Gianfranco Zola, or Peter Crouch with Michael Owen. If such a wide variation doesn't hinder male pro-footballers, why should it for female?

Also, going back to my original post, is there really not another way that sports can be categorised to remove the need for sex segregation? Would some form of biometric assessment be appropriate for example? Something like BMI but that takes into account muscle mass, relative body strength, leverage capacities or similar? I don't know if any of these suggestions would work, but worth thinking about, if only theoretically.

I'm still not sure why we need to unsegregate sports? Surely it would just lead to two or more categories, where the group with the tallest, fastest or strongest members becomes the team which gets the most coverage and the most money. Realistically, where would women feature. Unless every team or race has to include equal number of women and men. And then we're back to is a MTT a man or women?

Fair question BigDesk, I suppose we don't need to segregate. I was thinking of ways around the problem posed by the OP. Plus, I find it a bit distasteful that all the funding that goes into sport from hundreds of sources mostly goes towards men. I guess it's yet another reflection on society in that respect.

"Surely it would just lead to two or more categories, where the group with the tallest, fastest or strongest members becomes the team which gets the most coverage and the most money."

I think there may be some mileage in looking at different sports and viewing them as a physical skill, rather than just biggest, strongest fastest etc. As mentioned before in football, it isn't necessarily the pro's in those categories that excel. Weightlifting, sprinting etc. Yes, completely, that's what those sports are all about! But stuff like snooker, motor racing, golf, there's a lot of them out there that really don't bear up under scrutiny (IMO).