The whole trans people in sports “debate” could and should be broader and not dehumanizing.

Like why do we sex segregate sports? What are we testing and measuring in our sports? What are we competing to prove? Is sex the best axis for division in any sport?

I think part of the reason so many people resist trans people in sport is because trans people complicate sex segregation and make us grapple with what competitive sports are even for along with unresolved conversations about gender equality in sport and what it means and the deeper questions tied to that, like how to acknowledge sexual dimorphism without using it as an excuse for shitty power dynamics.

What do we do in sport when we get results like this (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajhb.23862 that most men are stronger than women even when their muscles are the same size)? Our current strategy is to sex segregate the sport. Is it the best strategy? I don’t know.

Where does a sex segregation strategy justified with the results above leave trans people? Is it even fair for cis women and men with unusual hormone or other biological traits to be allowed to compete with their own sex?

I guess that depends on why we even have weightlifting competitions and what winning them means.

If it’s just about who can lift the heaviest weight, then why have any segregation at all?

And what about disabled people and what it means to include or exclude us?

I’m not a sports person, but these topics are what I want the conversation to be about, not “should trans people be allowed to do sports”