"What kind of society are we building when we refuse to address the real threats to our children’s health and well-being and instead spend so much time and effort on attacking them or forcing them into impossibly rigid boxes? It’s not a healthy one, that’s certain." one hundred percent!!
In addition to everything else you rightly note, the argument about trans girls in sports and the "unfair" advantage they have overlooks two key points:
1) Even if the argument had biological merit, some people's biology grants them advantages in certain sports...and we do nothing about it, in fact we steer such people towards the sports in which their biology advantages them. How many tall kids are encouraged to play basketball or volleyball? How many muscular, large kids are encouraged to play football? That's a biological advantage as much as whatever advantage being born assigned male might offer...but no one cares.
2) The "unfairness" also disappears if we regard kids' sports not as yet another venue in which the victorious are separated from the defeated but instead as a place where kids can learn skills, confidence, teamwork, and perseverance, regardless of which team or athlete wins. The problems that arise in school sports from excessive competitiveness are well-known. The arguments against trans girls in school sports nearly always boil down to an alleged competitive advantage...as if winning and losing are the only valuable things about school athletics.
Maybe not. But what about Very Large People in football?
Or, for that matter, in any sport?
Has anyone ever suggested that, hey, that linebacker is just HUGE for a high school junior, he shouldn't be allowed to play?
(Answer: no, with possible very rare exceptions.)
One answer (doesn't work well in team sports) is to follow the lead of wrestling and boxing and sort competitors by weight or height, so that people of similar size are competing together and not against people massively larger.
In general, what people forget is that while men are, on average, larger than women, the range of either men or women is much greater than that difference. That is to say, it's easy to find a woman larger than any given man, or a man smaller than any given woman.
More than that: focusing on this issue is a distraction. Given the percentage of trans women/girls in the population, and given the percentage of women/girls participating in sports, we are talking about a very small group of people. Can't find it right now but...some Republican legislator in a smallish state was challenged on their opposition to trans girls in sports, being asked how many girls in the state his argument actually applied to. He was forced to note that...he was aware of precisely zero.
I think we can afford to stand for principle here.
I do not know what you're referring to re "name-calling."
Re "larger does not mean stronger": I never claimed that...but you were not clear regarding the terms of your objection. You stated only that "those are different situations" (different from what?) when "someone...has fully gone through male puberty." Since one effect of that change is growing closer to adult size, and since adults males are, on average, larger than adult females, I thought that's what you must be referring to.
If you meant something else, please clarify. I do not know what you might mean by "if you don't think there's a difference there," since (again) you do not specify what you're referring to.
I also do not know why you note that you are "not anti-science": I did not accuse you of being anti-science, and I did not write anything anti-science.
My main point is that we SHOULD stand on principle here, and the reason for that is that most arguments the Right raises are nonsensical...and even there were any validity to them (there are not), they would apply in vanishingly few cases.
We should defend the rights of trans athletes to participate in sports by the gender they identify with. Period.
"What kind of society are we building when we refuse to address the real threats to our children’s health and well-being and instead spend so much time and effort on attacking them or forcing them into impossibly rigid boxes? It’s not a healthy one, that’s certain." one hundred percent!!
In addition to everything else you rightly note, the argument about trans girls in sports and the "unfair" advantage they have overlooks two key points:
1) Even if the argument had biological merit, some people's biology grants them advantages in certain sports...and we do nothing about it, in fact we steer such people towards the sports in which their biology advantages them. How many tall kids are encouraged to play basketball or volleyball? How many muscular, large kids are encouraged to play football? That's a biological advantage as much as whatever advantage being born assigned male might offer...but no one cares.
2) The "unfairness" also disappears if we regard kids' sports not as yet another venue in which the victorious are separated from the defeated but instead as a place where kids can learn skills, confidence, teamwork, and perseverance, regardless of which team or athlete wins. The problems that arise in school sports from excessive competitiveness are well-known. The arguments against trans girls in school sports nearly always boil down to an alleged competitive advantage...as if winning and losing are the only valuable things about school athletics.
Maybe not. But what about Very Large People in football?
Or, for that matter, in any sport?
Has anyone ever suggested that, hey, that linebacker is just HUGE for a high school junior, he shouldn't be allowed to play?
(Answer: no, with possible very rare exceptions.)
One answer (doesn't work well in team sports) is to follow the lead of wrestling and boxing and sort competitors by weight or height, so that people of similar size are competing together and not against people massively larger.
In general, what people forget is that while men are, on average, larger than women, the range of either men or women is much greater than that difference. That is to say, it's easy to find a woman larger than any given man, or a man smaller than any given woman.
More than that: focusing on this issue is a distraction. Given the percentage of trans women/girls in the population, and given the percentage of women/girls participating in sports, we are talking about a very small group of people. Can't find it right now but...some Republican legislator in a smallish state was challenged on their opposition to trans girls in sports, being asked how many girls in the state his argument actually applied to. He was forced to note that...he was aware of precisely zero.
I think we can afford to stand for principle here.
I do not know what you're referring to re "name-calling."
Re "larger does not mean stronger": I never claimed that...but you were not clear regarding the terms of your objection. You stated only that "those are different situations" (different from what?) when "someone...has fully gone through male puberty." Since one effect of that change is growing closer to adult size, and since adults males are, on average, larger than adult females, I thought that's what you must be referring to.
If you meant something else, please clarify. I do not know what you might mean by "if you don't think there's a difference there," since (again) you do not specify what you're referring to.
I also do not know why you note that you are "not anti-science": I did not accuse you of being anti-science, and I did not write anything anti-science.
My main point is that we SHOULD stand on principle here, and the reason for that is that most arguments the Right raises are nonsensical...and even there were any validity to them (there are not), they would apply in vanishingly few cases.
We should defend the rights of trans athletes to participate in sports by the gender they identify with. Period.