There's the curious case of Maxine Blythin playing for Kent women currently and I believe the governing bodies are going to have to come to a decision relatively quickly (an unenviable task, I know). A quick google search will let you know who Maxine Blythin is, so go ahead, do your research.
When it comes to transgender athletes, is it enough to say yes - as long as you're identifying as a woman then you can play women's sport?
There's quite the argument against.
Men have the potential to have larger aerobic capacities leading to a bigger intake in oxygen to pump around the body. They also have the potential to grow bigger muscles and gain them back thanks to muscle memory, all attached to a frame carrying a different bone structure. A man's reaction time is also better than a woman's. Sharron Davies, ex-Olympic swimmer and Amazon (for those who remember her as that) talks so eloquently about the issues being just sport. If you want to transform your gender that's up to you and I hope it works out well for you.
As far as I'm concerned it only needs one aspect where there could be an advantage. Yes just one - and it only needs to be the potential.
When it comes to cricket you only have to look at the speeds the two genders can propel the ball down the wicket. Many men can bowl around the 90mph mark and we have copious amounts who are considered fast bowlers bowling consistently above 80mph. Women on the other hand are still trying to break 80mph and very rarely come close.
So let's mix it up and have Mark Wood, one of the game's quickest bowlers, bowling to Sarah Taylor (England women's greatest batter/wicket-keeper). She would hardly see the ball, let alone react and play the ball in a fashion that would get her picked for England men's side. Even wicket-keeping, she would struggle to gather the ball, god forbid Wood bowled one down the leg-side when she's stood 25 yards back.
This is the main issue, safety. Wood could potentially bowl balls that increases the chances of serious injury. Now you could say that Katherine Brunt could too. But she's using a body given to her by science that allows her to reach the speeds her body allows. Sarah Taylor is using her female body to allow her to react in time and play the ball. If she couldn't do that very well to Brunt, she would not be selected for her country and another girl would take her spot. To expect her to play Mark Wood with the ease she plays all the women bowlers is preposterous. Let's hope Wood doesn't all of a sudden decide to be female.
In 2014, UFC had transgender athlete Fallon Fox fight a lady called Tamikka Brents. In the first round Brents suffered a fractured skull due to Fox's punching. I really can't see how people think this is OK or safe, not that UFC is particularly safe but it's so obvious that the chances of this happening increase when males compete against females.
Joe Rogan speaks about Laurel Hubbard, a power-lifter who changed from male-to-female and won her event by lifting 19 kilograms more than the second placed naturally born female. 19 kilograms!!! That's staggering. As he says, imagine being a natural born woman who has been training all your life to become an elite athlete, then you have to compete with males who decide they're going to be female. What's to stop me forcing everyone to call me a woman with my shaved, upside down head and trialing with England women. I'd back myself to go well at that level, as would a few gentlemen I'm sure.
I've heard some people talk about doing away with gender segregation completely. Just have one category where the best players play and that's it. It's an interesting view but I can tell you, there would be next to no women playing elite sport. (Maybe Fallon Sherrock would still be playing darts). I would rather see girls and women playing sport, why shouldn't they be allowed to a be a professional athlete?
But I also believe that you can't be a sub-elite male, force people to call you female and then perform as a professional athlete in the women's game whilst you use your body to be successful and pick up false accolades and admiration and everything else that comes with sporting stardom.
So why then do you have the likes of Sharron Davies and Martina Navratilova standing up for women in sport, yet you've got Kent team-mate of Blythin's, world-cup-winning Tammy Beaumont happy to support her male-to-female friend and see transgender athletes coming into women's sport?
Well the ECB are allowing Blythin to play and potentially be selected for England. Miss Beaumont isn't going to go against her employers is she? But then if there were 15 Maxine Blythins in the England squad then there's a good chance Beaumont wouldn't be playing for England at all as she would be at such a disadvantage trying to compete for a spot with those in a biological male body. Who's to say in 10 years time the England women's side isn't made up of 11 male-to-female transgender athletes.
And that's the same reason why the main people defending biological women in this are retired. They don't get paid by governing bodies anymore. I'm sure if any of Navratilova's records were to be broken she wouldn't want them broken by one of the 1500 male tennis players that would beat Serena Williams according to Piers Morgan. In the same interview, India Willoughby claims there are currently 2000 males that can run faster than the women's 100m world record of 10.49 set in 1988. A few weeks earlier whilst again sat with Piers Morgan, Willoughby pointed out about Brents fracturing her Skull from Fox's punches. The response she received was "Have you got anything more recent?" - Would it really matter if it happened 100 years ago?
As I often say, if there really are no advantages here then why don't we see or debate about females trying to partake in men's sport?
Perhaps the answer is to have males, females, male-to-female and female-to-male categories so that we can all enjoy sport on a level playing field, but you won't see many games from the transgender categories. The other thing for sure is that if males continue to identify as women and play women's sport then there will only be one loser in all this, and it's not men.
I just want the girls I coach to enjoy their sport and if they want to be a professional I will do my best to support them and guide them as best as I can. If I was a parent to one of these girls though, I would not want to see men adding more barriers and make the game unsafe by transitioning and denying females who have worked hard to get where they are a professional sporting contract and keep it safer for those current professionals.
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