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A modest proposal to solve the trans sports issue (and maybe also all other gender issues in human society)
(Warning: controversial and lizard brain pilled. I’m not sure how much I actually believe this, I just want to have some fun speculating)
Recently, despite the massive blue wave in the midterm election, there was one conservative victory: the state of Washington (a very blue state!) passed a ballot measure that banned trans girls from competing on girls’ sports teams. This has triggered a quick lawsuit, and I have to think it’ll get struck down, but we’ll see. At any rate, it shows what a controversial issue this still is.
My proposal: stop segregating girls and boys sports teams all together. “Separate but equal is inherently unequal.” We already make them take classes together, and in fact mix genders in almost every activity now, even the Boy Scouts! Separate male and female bathrooms are also quickly becoming a thing of the past. And women are now proudly welcomed into every branch of the military, even front-line infantry. Also, kids are fully expected to play together during elementary school sports, as well as most adult rec leagues. So why are middle and high school sports this one, weird exception where everyone wants segregation?
I think that if we’re being honest, there’s one clear reason: it’s because the boys are too much better than the girls. We make the separate girls league so that the girls can win and feel good about themselves. It’s to give them self-confidence.
But isn’t that anathema to sports? Or at least, to competitive sports where there’s tryouts and tournaments and stuff? It feels wrong that the same league which says “you must do everything to be the very best and win” also says “but we’ll make a special, easier division to give out more trophies to the weaker players.”
At a stroke, this instantly solves the transgender issue. Everyone plays on the same team. No need for “vagina inspection day” or however the hell Washington was planning to do it. (And if you ban trans girls from the girls team, then where are they supposed to play? I guess they just don’t get to play sports at all?)
You might ask, but wouldn’t this stop girls from playing sports? No, I don’t think so. They’ll still be on the team, they’ll still practice and compete. It just might stop them from being starters, because they’re probably not good enough for that. But that’s the same problem that most boys have, too. It’s not some fundamental human right to have a starting spot on the varsity basketball team.
But what about the girls’ self-confidence? Wasn’t that the whole point? Well… here’s where things get extra spicy. (Translation: deranged, half-baked, hot takes.)
I believe that a lot of problems in our current society are caused because women have too much self-confidence, and men have too little. The girl who was the star of her girls’ field hockey team gets a full-ride scholarship to Harvard, then gets recruited into a hedge fund, where she is quickly promoted to make diversity quotas. So she becomes an extremely confident, ego-tripping, “girl-boss,” with immense power to make bad decisions that damage the world, or at least her company. She makes life hell for her subordinates, and loses all attraction to any normal men. She advocates strongly for feminist programs that benefit women like herself: more money for girls sports, no trans girls allowed in girls’ sports, and more female executives.
Meanwhile, her male equivalent? Well, he diligently played sports throughout his teen years, and was objectively better than her, but not good enough to make the Varsity team. Certainly not good enough for any college to offer him a scholarship, or even really care. So he goes to his local state university where tuition was cheap. He struggles to date anyone there because he looks bad compared to the football players and celebrities. He graduates, gets a perfectly normal job, but struggles to get promoted because “they have too many men in management already.” He tries and fails on all the dating apps. He stops giving his opinion on politics, because he’s scared of getting cancelled or shouted at by angry feminists.
Mixing up the girls with the boys would change all of this dynamic. The boys would get a big shot of confidence as they realize just how big and strong they are. The girls would stop getting fake confidence at winning a separate league, and really appreciate the boys for what they are. The colleges would open up far more spots to boys, so the gender ratio there would balance out. The boys would get laid a lot more, boosting the birth rate. And then they’d go on to get better jobs and be more active in politics, thus restoring reason and logic in our society.
Am I right? Tell me how any of this could possibly be wrong.
edit: see my response to people saying that the male league is technically "open" here: https://www.themotte.org/post/4074/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/497696?context=8#context
I know you are sort of kidding around here, but I do think that at a minimum, we should stop calling men's sports "men's sports." Rather, we should have "open" and "women only."
Because yeah, people need to be reminded that women's sports are fundamentally no different from the Special Olympics: It's not an open competition but instead it's a restricted competition so that the participants can feel good about themselves. If winners at the Special Olympics started complaining that they don't get the same lucrative sponsorship deals as actual Olympic champions, nobody would take them seriously. That's the attitude society needs to have towards women's sports.
Why is it that nobody pretends to be mentally retarded so that they can participate in the Special Olympics? Because there's nothing to be gained from it. So yeah, in the same way, there shouldn't be scholarships or similar benefits offered to those who succeed in women's sports. If women want to compete for scholarships, they can compete in open sports.
As far as self-esteem and over-promotion of women goes, I think that's a more complicated and wide-ranging issue. I agree it's a problem that women are encouraged and over-promoted into high-flying careers, that they are constantly told they are superior to men, etc., but I don't think you are going to fix this problem by fixing sports.
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