The International Cricket Council has become the latest sports body to ban transgender players from the elite women’s game if they have gone through male puberty.
The ICC said it had taken the decision, following an extensive scientific review and nine-month consultation, to “protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players”.
It joins rugby union, swimming, cycling, athletics and rugby league, who have all gone down a similar path in recent years after citing concerns over fairness or safety.
TBH I could live with it if the world accepted and honored trans people, and trans people recognized that the biological legacy of their birth sex makes it unfair for them to compete in gender segmented sports. Maybe someday we’ll find a better way to segment sports. Maybe not.
We already found a way in weight classes, but nobody will use it for some reason
Seems like weight class would mostly break down into men’s and women’s anyway, but I guess it would allow for exceptions. Weight class doesn’t seem ideal for all sports though. And even if used, you’d have to have class divisions for each position. Because basketball centers are just bigger and heavier than forwards generally. Perhaps height classes would be just as relevant for basketball. It could all work, but it would be really complicated. And I think smaller men would be afraid to compete in a mostly-women league because, by old world values, winning over women would have no glory, but losing to them would have tons of shame. I wonder if any women would actually want to be the only woman in their league, too. Perhaps it’s about more than just physical ability? Anyway interesting topic.
whatever we should change to would be better than the blind seperation of sexes we have now, whatever we come up with has to pass the prerequisite of overcoming transphobia first. thats unfortunately gonna be a larger hurdle than the sports
i try not to think about it, it makes me mad lol
It’s generally not a blind separation of sexes, it’s an everyone league and a women’s league. Two leagues explicitly exist to protect women/give them a chance.