But it sounds paradoxical to me to try to make sex-neutral sports that are divided by sex.

If the competitions were the oscars (because its on everyone's brain) the answer would be easy, why do we even bother to split up oscar categories by sex, its simply tradition and it could be done away with.

Or if it were the grammys would could say, the distinctions we make by race (and the proxy's we use for race like genres urban/pop/etc.) are relics of the racial history of music and we can easily (or maybe not so easily) do away with those categories.

But sex is inherently more objective way to divide most sports more so then gender and its hard to skirt around that without picking winners and losers. Even the most decent progressive person is going to feel a way when their daughter loses to a person who competed most of their career as a male. To not acknowledge that a demonize people who feel that way doesn't seem like the best way to get people to come around to the cause.

Also, and I am really done on this subject I hope, I think you naimed that the idea is to affirm the identity of transpeople and a lot of this is being done for their wellbeing. But Its also kind of obvious that being plastered in newspapers and being made into memes is not going to do anything positive for Lia Thomas' mental health and making her feel affirmed.

She was going to have a tough go whether they made her compete in mens or women category but by placing her in women's category it seemed like she was set up for a level of global ridicule that would not be healthy.



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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"