"The boys don’t just have better records, the women’s records wouldn’t likely qualify for the boys state championships." -- Joseph Moore
Why does this matter? Sports discriminates: women only compete against other women.
But US law now says that if someone "believes" he is a really-truly woman on the inside, he is entitled to enter women's locker rooms, rest rooms,... and engage in women's sports. How long before some young men catch on to this easy way to achieve Olympic greatness?
This is also relevant, even more soberingly, to the idiotic idea of assigning women to the combat-infantry.
ReplyDeleteI was going to raise an observation/question about that 1500m time, since the HS record is very close to the men's world record. But when I went to cross check, I think it turns out just to be a typo (graph might also be using a disputed time). Official US boys' HS record at 1500m is 3:38.26 (held by the great Alan Webb).
ReplyDeleteAlso of interest is looking at the mile times by age and watching puberty have its impact on the time difference.
Yea, typo, sorry. Still, a 15 second difference means you're over 100 meters behind - that's losing pretty badly.
DeleteWomen athletes are amazing (hooray, Simone Biles!) but they can't compete with men where speed, strength and size are important.
It's been done.
ReplyDeleteHe was in his 40s when he was ranked 20th woman in the world. He was never ranked as a male. Men tend to peak as tennis players in their early to mid 20s, and are way, way past prime by their 40s. Arthur Ashe was the oldest man to win Wimbledon at 31; Martina Navratilova was the oldest women's champ at 33. So that a mediocre male in his 40s could get to number 20 on the women's rankings kinda proves the point.
DeleteMore important, Richards had undergone sex reassignment surgery (sic) - the modern rulings insist only that testosterone levels be suppressed to within acceptable range for a woman (and that rule is so arbitrary that I'd be shocked if it didn't soon fall). Thus, a man could simply claim he's a woman and (for the time being) take drugs to suppress his testosterone levels for a year or so, and compete as a woman.
I'd bet 1) that this becomes a real issue before the next Olympics, with women who have worked hard for decades getting defeated by guys competing as women more or less for kicks, and 2) that rule about needing to have woman-like levels of testosterone gets thrown out, because some guy who has claimed to be a woman for years will have his feelings hurt and a court will go along with it.
Woman athletes will be consigned to those sports where strength, speed and bigger size are not decisive.
I recall reading about his petulant reply to one questioner something like "I'm a woman and I have the scars to prove it (I'd be delighted to have a verifiable source for this, though, besides my aging memory)." And I thought, "Hmmm ... my wife doesn't have those scars. Does that mean she (my wife) isn't a woman?"
DeleteI recall reading about his petulant reply to one questioner something like "I'm a woman and I have the scars to prove it (I'd be delighted to have a verifiable source for this, though, besides my aging memory)." And I thought, "Hmmm ... my wife doesn't have those scars. Does that mean she (my wife) isn't a woman?"
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