actually, i have more to say on this.
recently, i listened to an espn daily episode that looked at what’s happening at san diego state university’s women’s volleyball team. an athlete was outed by her teammate as transgender. she has played girl’s and women’s volleyball since high school, which is when most start; she abides by ncaa volleyball and mountain west conference standards and policies regarding transgender athletes. but despite being only slightly above average in her conference and doing everything she was supposed to do, this teammate, and others, felt that she was “dangerous” and her playing against other women was “unsafe”. several teams forfeited their games against sdsu, assumedly because of this trans athlete. this teammate went so far as to accuse her of colluding with another team to target her, a claim that the ncaa found no basis in.
while this specific athlete, who has yet to speak out in any way, is undoubtedly experiencing something awful (being outed is bad enough, i can’t imagine how having it be publicized and debated in court makes things any better), this case speaks to a wider issue that is plaguing sports, this country, and the wider world.
more and more, society is scrutinizing gender and the arbitrary metrics that we use to define it. there are countless cases of athletes, cis and trans alike, who are accused and investigated becuase they “look” trans or a hormone is not at levels that we deem acceptable for that gender. this is how genital inspections for minor athletes get normalized and accepted.
science has shown the diversity of human existence. it has also shown the basis of our societal understanding of gender is flawed; it’s not based on scientific, from biological to behavioral, facts, instead on -phobic ideologies and stubborn beliefs with no basis. i’m not saying that if a fear is unfounded, it is not still a valid fear (i would be a hypocrite if that was the case); i’m saying that instead of actually protecting people, “tranvestigations” are harming them.
