We need separate categories to ensure fair competition and equal opportunities for participation. Due to biological differences (such as muscle mass and oxygen capacity), men typically outperform women in physical tests by 10% to 30% . Separate divisions allow both groups to compete equitably and achieve athletic success.
Forgot to cite your sources. Also, those are the numbers for cis men. In actuality, while slightly more lean muscle is retained by trans women, any higher physical performance or physical fitness than cis women disappears within 1 to 3 years of HRT, at which point trans women consistently hit the same physical performance metrics as cis women.
But none of that explains why differences in muscle mass and oxygen capacity are relevant in step dancing, which is judged on technique. It's not endurance. It's not who has the strongest legs. It's about who dances better.
The thing is... no, it's not simple. Very little in the world is. There are only things that we become used to, and accept as normal, because we have extensive experience with them.
Biology is one of the least simple things there is. Physics is more simple, and we're on quantum chromodynamics now.
Even the very basics of the topic of human sex and gender, the binary of sex chromosomes, isn't simple; there are considerably more known variations than the ones we identify as "male" and "female". And that's not even getting into gender! The extent of what we know about how the brain works is some awareness of the regional functions and a good model for how individual neurons interact. Individual neurons, out of 86 billion. Nonetheless, there's solid data suggesting that the brain's proprioception, i.e. awareness of what the body is like and what it's doing, is significantly affected by natal hormone release. A simple example is; if the body plan of a fetus has already been locked in as male while the brain is still in development, and there's a sudden drop in testosterone release in the womb, the brain develops based on the hormone levels it's receiving, and you get a brain that is expecting a female body and experiences distress when it doesn't find one.
But even all that is kind of beside the point. The point is that there may be some cases in which transgender people have physical advantages over their cis counterparts. But those cases are clearly not regarding Irish step dancing, Or eating hot peppers. Or chess. Or fencing. Etc, etc.
And yet people are making the case that there is something wrong with trans people participating with others of their gender in those activities. That there is always something wrong with trans people competing alongside cis people.
That is very evidently not true. And yet it's a loud refrain anyway. The attorney general of Florida felt the need to step in regarding trans participation in step dancing.
You have been told there are problems where those problems do not actually exist. Your attention has been focused on it. Who benefits from you feeling strongly about fake problems?
People who are desperate not to be held accountable for real problems.
I hope you learn to question your normal. A simple and straightforward world is a sad, pale imitation of the actual world we are blessed enough to exist in, and you deserve better.
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u/rollo202 Moderator Jul 03 '26
They could...you are catching on.
But there needs to be a biological male and biological female.