And I keep coming back to this.
We can make different "levels" of competitive sports without any of this.
We don't separate people in minor and major league sports by measuring their bone and muscle density and testosterones levels. We have them play the sport and the top .01% go in the major league and the top .1% go int the minor league and exactly zero existential crises related to identity or categorization happens.
Is the Captain of the team who hoist the Calder Cup (the minor league hockey trophy) going to feel like he really isn't winning because somewhere else someone is hoisting the Stanley Cup?
Like I feel like a lot of voices in this discussion are treating "I want to be able to pretend like I'm the best at something in a specific demographic category but I have to be able to lie to myself and pretend like the category isn't arbitrary" as more true then it is.
Like I sorta thought we all understood that subcategories only existed if you want to break it down mathematically there is exactly one person who's the absolute best at any specific thing and that gets depressing. That's why we have weight classes and minor versus major league sports and we all, I think, just get even if it's unspoken that that is all a way for more of us to say we are "the best" at something. But like it doesn't "mean" anything.
If being the fastest female runner in the 45-65 age demographic is the same thing as being the 10,435,546th fastest runner in the world... then it's the same thing. Just because you're the "best" in a category that we, let us drop the pretense here, made up so more people can be the best in something I thought we all got what we were doing and why we were doing it. Like it doesn't actually make you the best.
There is one fastest runner on the planet. There is one person who can throw a shot put the farthest. There is one person who can deadlift the most weight. All the rest of us are "The fastest running..... with these caveats" and I don't know if "Okay but these categories are obviously needed and these aren't" is something we're all agreeing on.
Like having separate women's categories is nice but... I don't know if the base human right we're treating it as.
I don't know if I fully agree that "Women have a right to category just so they can call themselves the best at something" is
Imagine this. Imagine I say I'm the fastest running left handed atheist veteran who drives a Chevy, has O+ blood, a social security number that ends in (redacted), is married to a woman who's last name starts with an M, has beat Dark Souls using only Daggers, and blah blah blah... and so forth and so on.
At a certain point I can add enough modifiers to make myself the best at anything but we'd all get what I was doing what people don't get is that exactly what we are doing anyway, it's just a matter of degree.
There seems to be a sweet spot of "Enough modifiers so I can say I'm the best at something, but not so many that it's obvious that's what you are doing."
Like women are made that putting transwomen into the mix is going to put an asterisks over what they do but there's an asterisks, it's called "Women's sports."
By your argument, Joe, we shouldn't have little league competitions, because the age limitations are an arbitrary modifier and there's really only one best baseball player. The fact that the one actual best baseball player is an adult shouldn't matter, those kids should just suck it up and realize that they suck and there's no hope and no chance for them.
The whole issue here is that pound-for-pound, inch-for-inch, males are stronger and faster than females. If you remove the sex categorization in sport, then you *will* end up with EVERY SINGLE PROFESSIONAL AND SEMI-PRO COMPETITOR always being male, and you'll end up with pretty much EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON CLUB TEAMS also being male. You end up in a situation where any time anyone starts a club or team for any athletics... it will always be filled with males.
The result of this is that females simply aren't allowed to play sports.
The reason that we have sex-based leagues, the reason we have age-based leagues, the reason we have weight-based leagues is exactly because there are some physical attributes that will dominate.
The heavyweight boxing champ is, pretty much unquestionably, going to be the best boxer over all. No question. But part of the reason that the heavyweight is going to be the best is because
they are the biggest, and in boxing size matters a lot. We recognize that some portion of the win for a heavyweight is not based on their skill or their technique at all, it's based exclusively on them being big. That's great, to an extent. But most people are not interested in watching a big guy beat up a little guy, and they're definitely not interested in watching a big guy with mediocre technique beat up a little guy who has excellent skills and is crazy fast. We all know - as spectators and participants - that the little guy in that scenario is the better boxer, they little guy has the skills and the technique and the speed that makes boxing fun to watch. But if you pair that featherweight with a heavyweight, you will pretty much always end up with a poorly trained gorilla winning despite being a **** boxer.
Part of why Tyson was such an incredible boxer, and remains one of the all time absolute best ever is specifically because he was a little guy - he was invariably shorter than his competitors, with a shorter reach - and those are things that actually matter in boxing. But despite being the smaller guy in the ring, he consistently beat much bigger boxers - and *that* makes Tyson ******* incredible. If Tyson had been the same size as their competitors, they'd still probably have won, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as captivating to watch, it would have been normal.
We have divisions because that allows us to showcase and recognize the skills and abilities of athletes
within the limitations of their physicality. You seem to be acting like the asterisk is somehow a detriment, something to be ashamed of, it's a move from pity. I don't think it is - rather I think it demonstrates that you're probably not much of a sports fan.
Which is fine, I'm not a huge sports fan myself. But I have had a few sports that I like, or have participated in in the past. And I understand that the asterisk isn't there so that the participants can feel good. It's there because both skill and body play a part in competitiveness. We don't have control over the body, but we can hone the skills - and we like to see and recognize the excellence of a honed skill.
Look, for a while my spouse and I were bow shooting. My spouse is much larger than me, and has the advantages of being male. Their bow had a much heavier draw than mine, they could shoot much further than me. That's the result of their body, not their actual shooting skill. No matter how much I practiced, I'm never ever going to be able to draw their bow and accurately shoot with it. At 5'2", I will never, ever have the musculature that they have at 6'2", it's not going to happen. I will never, ever be able to draw as far as they can, because my arms are shorter. That means that no matter what, my arrows will never have as much force behind them as their do.
In bow shooting, that force is what keeps the arrow moving in a straight line. The more force behind it, the straighter it flies with less drop, and with less interference from cross-breezes or spin. If my spouse and I were both shooting at the same distance, they would always, always, always win. There's no way around it. But not because they were a better *shot* or because they had better *aim*. When we shot at bow-weight adjusted distances,
I was more accurate. I had greater *skill* than my spouse, even though they were *bigger*.
On the other hand, there was also a 13 year old female who was at the range with us pretty regularly, and they could beat the pants off me any day. They were incredible. We only shot for fun and exercise, they were competing.
