Woodley pool suspends member over transgender swimmer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there someone with actual knowledge of the facts here who can credibly convey what happened without topspin? We are reacting ITT to a piece that is purposely inflammatory and very light on knowledge of the sport.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't like how Fernandez handled this.

However, I also don't like how the team or meet organizers handled it, or how NVSL handled it. This is not a situation you can just pretend is not happening. It is happening. There are trans girls competing as girls in sex-segregated sports, and it is raising an issue of fairness.

The sports were sex segregated for a reason. It wasn't arbitrary. We cannot pretend suddenly that it *is* arbitrary because that makes it easier to tell the family of the trans girl "yes, of course she can swim in the girls category! we don't care!" Some people do care. And if, as in this case, the trans girl goes on to win, many people will view this as unfair to the biological girls who lost to someone who is making an affirmative choice to identify as a girl. A choice those girls didn't have.

This is where the progressive stance on trans girls in sports lose me. We cannot just pretend there isn't a problem here. And we can't just act like pointing out the problem immediately makes you a bigot.

If this wasn't a problem, there would be no sex segregation in sports to begin with.

I mostly agree with you, but I think you assume trans people don't "need" to be trans, but that is who they are. It is a really difficult situation and unfortunately boys sports are not a welcoming space for trans girls. Everyone deserves to have access to sports.

One, I have no opinion on what trans people need -- that is for them to decide. If a trans person decides they need hormone blockers, surgery, binding, whatever, that's fine with me. Those are personal, individual choices that have nothing to do with me, and I support laws that permit people to decide what they need for themselves. I feel about transness the way I feel about abortion -- it is no one else's business what an individual decides to do with their own body.

Two, I do not think boys sports are universally an unwelcoming space for trans girls. I actually think if we normalized the idea that trans girls participate on boys teams in certain sports, especially in progressive areas like the DMV, you would discover it's fine. I think we need to normalize talking about what makes sense, and what is fair, while also being respectful towards the gender expression of these kids, being thoughtful with our language, etc.

And yes, everyone deserves to have access to sports! That is specifically why many people, myself included, have started to get wary of the way that trans girls in sex-segregated sports may actually limit the access of biological girls and women to these sports.

I used to say "oh it doesn't matter, let people compete as they identify." Lia Thomas changed my feelings about it. A trans girl or woman competing on girls teams and in girls leagues can reduce the number of biological girls/women who have access to athletics, and reduce their success within those sports.

A trans person didn't choose to be trans. But a biological woman also didn't choose to be a biological woman. I don't think you can ask biological girls and women to step aside and give up access to things like athletics, that they had to fight for for decades, to make space for trans women. I think we need trans sports categories and to work on social attitudes so that we can still sex segregate in sports without it being an unfair burden on trans girls and women.

Here is a resource you might consider helpful: https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-people-and-sports#:~:text=For%20millions%20of%20Americans%2C%20sport,space%20for%20aspiring%20LGBTQ%2B%20athletes

It's a bit absurd to say "it would be fine" . In many cases it isn't "fine" - there is a reason sports participation is very low among lgbtq kids

it's not absurd to suggest than in a liberal suburb of a liberal city, it would be fine for a trans girl to participate in the boys category of a sport where boys and girls already train together. This is a swim club that was willing to kick out a member because they felt he'd been intolerant and unkind. But apparently if a trans girl raced against boys at that same club, she would experience unacceptable discrimination? That makes no sense.

With regards to trans athletes, there is a fundamental issue because they don't fully belong in either girls or boys categories. As someone who, though not trans, has often struggled with not fully belonging in my life, I have a great deal of empathy for kids in that position. It must be hard, and I always teach my own kids to practice tolerance and acceptance of others, to not get hung up on the ways in which a person might deviate from norms, and to see to find commonality not division. I absolutely think here is a place for trans kids in sports and I think we need to work to make sure that space is safe and welcoming.

But that doesn't mean we should pretend there is no physiological difference between boys and girls. This makes no sense, especially when we've obviously gone to the trouble of creating separate categories based on those physiological differences. We don't have to abandon fairness or common sense in order to make sure trans kids can participate.

Why is the only way to be tolerant and welcoming of trans girls in sports to allow them to compete against biological girls? Why is that the only solution? The one solution that disadvantages biological girls is the only possible option? Why can't we have a separate category for trans athletes, or a rule where all athletes compete with "sex assigned at birth" but also broad tolerance for gender presentation (including allowing any swimmer to wear a full coverage suit if preferred, regardless of sex or division) and promote all-gender practices and camaraderie? Why is what I'm suggesting bigoted?

He wasn't kicked out for being intolerant and unkind, just unkind.

Oh give me a freaking break. Being "unkind?" This is not kindergarten.

He was 100% right to raise the issue and, apparently, did so in a completely appropriate manner. If he did not, there would be swarms of video proving otherwise.

Article says: “Noticing that the race results had been posted, and that the male swimmer had won two races, Fernandez “decided to go get a marker and write the word ‘BOY’ next to his name.”

Writing BOY next to the swimmers name on the results pages hanging up on the wall that parents and kids look at to see times/finishes is not appropriate by any stretch of the imagination. That’s a bully move & also a d*ck move.

+1 Not to mention that this vandalism was the result of an adult man looking at a kid in a girls' swimsuit and deciding on his own that she didn't look sufficiently feminine for his tastes.

How do you know that? Maybe he knows the kid and/or the kids family and knows that the kid is a male. It is a small, private swim club after all.

July 13th is the end of the swim season. If he knew, I suspect he would have brought this up to the swim team or pool board well before this mini meet.

Stop defending the harassments of a child at a summer swim meet.

Bottom line is, the child was a boy and apparently shouldn't have been there.

Bottom line has nothing to do with the gender of the child - It was how the adult handled what he perceived to be unfairness in a fun competition. Regardless of the larger issue of trans boys swimming with girls, what this adult male did when something he perceived to be unfair was completely out of line and not someone I would want to be associated with at my local community pool. Can we just admit regardless of the larger issue, that he did not handle it appropriately?

DP and I don't think he handled it correctly.

However I also think part of the problem here is that there are not good avenues for handling this better. NVSL is silent on the subject, individual pools/teams will make their own rules, in many cases what happens is there are no actual rules and then decisions are made ad hoc when presented with the issue. Or sometimes the decision isn't made by the pool or team at all, it's made by the parents, with the hope or belief that others will just accept that decision.

This is a hot button topic and people feel strongly about it -- the league has an obligation to create clear rules everyone can live with, which will take it out of the hands of people like Fernandez who thinks he's righting a wrong or speaking up for a silent majority opinion. If the rules are clear, it's very easy to deal with people like this. When they are fuzzy or being interpreted different ways, it gives this kind of vigilante an opening to cause havoc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't like how Fernandez handled this.

However, I also don't like how the team or meet organizers handled it, or how NVSL handled it. This is not a situation you can just pretend is not happening. It is happening. There are trans girls competing as girls in sex-segregated sports, and it is raising an issue of fairness.

The sports were sex segregated for a reason. It wasn't arbitrary. We cannot pretend suddenly that it *is* arbitrary because that makes it easier to tell the family of the trans girl "yes, of course she can swim in the girls category! we don't care!" Some people do care. And if, as in this case, the trans girl goes on to win, many people will view this as unfair to the biological girls who lost to someone who is making an affirmative choice to identify as a girl. A choice those girls didn't have.

This is where the progressive stance on trans girls in sports lose me. We cannot just pretend there isn't a problem here. And we can't just act like pointing out the problem immediately makes you a bigot.

If this wasn't a problem, there would be no sex segregation in sports to begin with.

I mostly agree with you, but I think you assume trans people don't "need" to be trans, but that is who they are. It is a really difficult situation and unfortunately boys sports are not a welcoming space for trans girls. Everyone deserves to have access to sports.

One, I have no opinion on what trans people need -- that is for them to decide. If a trans person decides they need hormone blockers, surgery, binding, whatever, that's fine with me. Those are personal, individual choices that have nothing to do with me, and I support laws that permit people to decide what they need for themselves. I feel about transness the way I feel about abortion -- it is no one else's business what an individual decides to do with their own body.

Two, I do not think boys sports are universally an unwelcoming space for trans girls. I actually think if we normalized the idea that trans girls participate on boys teams in certain sports, especially in progressive areas like the DMV, you would discover it's fine. I think we need to normalize talking about what makes sense, and what is fair, while also being respectful towards the gender expression of these kids, being thoughtful with our language, etc.

And yes, everyone deserves to have access to sports! That is specifically why many people, myself included, have started to get wary of the way that trans girls in sex-segregated sports may actually limit the access of biological girls and women to these sports.

I used to say "oh it doesn't matter, let people compete as they identify." Lia Thomas changed my feelings about it. A trans girl or woman competing on girls teams and in girls leagues can reduce the number of biological girls/women who have access to athletics, and reduce their success within those sports.

A trans person didn't choose to be trans. But a biological woman also didn't choose to be a biological woman. I don't think you can ask biological girls and women to step aside and give up access to things like athletics, that they had to fight for for decades, to make space for trans women. I think we need trans sports categories and to work on social attitudes so that we can still sex segregate in sports without it being an unfair burden on trans girls and women.

Here is a resource you might consider helpful: https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-people-and-sports#:~:text=For%20millions%20of%20Americans%2C%20sport,space%20for%20aspiring%20LGBTQ%2B%20athletes

It's a bit absurd to say "it would be fine" . In many cases it isn't "fine" - there is a reason sports participation is very low among lgbtq kids

it's not absurd to suggest than in a liberal suburb of a liberal city, it would be fine for a trans girl to participate in the boys category of a sport where boys and girls already train together. This is a swim club that was willing to kick out a member because they felt he'd been intolerant and unkind. But apparently if a trans girl raced against boys at that same club, she would experience unacceptable discrimination? That makes no sense.

With regards to trans athletes, there is a fundamental issue because they don't fully belong in either girls or boys categories. As someone who, though not trans, has often struggled with not fully belonging in my life, I have a great deal of empathy for kids in that position. It must be hard, and I always teach my own kids to practice tolerance and acceptance of others, to not get hung up on the ways in which a person might deviate from norms, and to see to find commonality not division. I absolutely think here is a place for trans kids in sports and I think we need to work to make sure that space is safe and welcoming.

But that doesn't mean we should pretend there is no physiological difference between boys and girls. This makes no sense, especially when we've obviously gone to the trouble of creating separate categories based on those physiological differences. We don't have to abandon fairness or common sense in order to make sure trans kids can participate.

Why is the only way to be tolerant and welcoming of trans girls in sports to allow them to compete against biological girls? Why is that the only solution? The one solution that disadvantages biological girls is the only possible option? Why can't we have a separate category for trans athletes, or a rule where all athletes compete with "sex assigned at birth" but also broad tolerance for gender presentation (including allowing any swimmer to wear a full coverage suit if preferred, regardless of sex or division) and promote all-gender practices and camaraderie? Why is what I'm suggesting bigoted?

He wasn't kicked out for being intolerant and unkind, just unkind.

Oh give me a freaking break. Being "unkind?" This is not kindergarten.

He was 100% right to raise the issue and, apparently, did so in a completely appropriate manner. If he did not, there would be swarms of video proving otherwise.

Article says: “Noticing that the race results had been posted, and that the male swimmer had won two races, Fernandez “decided to go get a marker and write the word ‘BOY’ next to his name.”

Writing BOY next to the swimmers name on the results pages hanging up on the wall that parents and kids look at to see times/finishes is not appropriate by any stretch of the imagination. That’s a bully move & also a d*ck move.

+1 Not to mention that this vandalism was the result of an adult man looking at a kid in a girls' swimsuit and deciding on his own that she didn't look sufficiently feminine for his tastes.

How do you know that? Maybe he knows the kid and/or the kids family and knows that the kid is a male. It is a small, private swim club after all.

July 13th is the end of the swim season. If he knew, I suspect he would have brought this up to the swim team or pool board well before this mini meet.

Stop defending the harassments of a child at a summer swim meet.

Bottom line is, the child was a boy and apparently shouldn't have been there.

Bottom line has nothing to do with the gender of the child - It was how the adult handled what he perceived to be unfairness in a fun competition. Regardless of the larger issue of trans boys swimming with girls, what this adult male did when something he perceived to be unfair was completely out of line and not someone I would want to be associated with at my local community pool. Can we just admit regardless of the larger issue, that he did not handle it appropriately?

No. We can't. Because we're still waiting for proof. If his actions were so terrible, where are the videos from the many people who were filming the incident?

I'm basing it on his words from the article. His actions were wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't like how Fernandez handled this.

However, I also don't like how the team or meet organizers handled it, or how NVSL handled it. This is not a situation you can just pretend is not happening. It is happening. There are trans girls competing as girls in sex-segregated sports, and it is raising an issue of fairness.

The sports were sex segregated for a reason. It wasn't arbitrary. We cannot pretend suddenly that it *is* arbitrary because that makes it easier to tell the family of the trans girl "yes, of course she can swim in the girls category! we don't care!" Some people do care. And if, as in this case, the trans girl goes on to win, many people will view this as unfair to the biological girls who lost to someone who is making an affirmative choice to identify as a girl. A choice those girls didn't have.

This is where the progressive stance on trans girls in sports lose me. We cannot just pretend there isn't a problem here. And we can't just act like pointing out the problem immediately makes you a bigot.

If this wasn't a problem, there would be no sex segregation in sports to begin with.

I think we can agree Fernandez acted inappropriately. He was acting as the marshal--holding the quiet sign and directing traffic. He had concerns and raised them to the referee (final arbiter of the rules) and the team reps (the meet managers responsible for the meet). At no point whole serving as an Official should he have engaged with the parents of the swimmer to criticize, belittle, or swear at them. And as an Official, he certainly shouldn't have added anything to the results sheets. The pool took action based on his actions towards their guests.

Agree completely he can object to girls swimming in boys heats and vice versa, and he did. He's wrong for how he handled it, not the objections themselves. Actions have consequences.

People go outside the system when the system promotes unfairness. They don’t protest unfairness in the system in ways that are neat and tidy.

So long as state and organizational power promotes an elitist and top-down belief system that is perceived as extremely unfair, people will continue to protest in ways that are “inappropriate.”

Is this a real response or are you purposefully trying to be inflammatory? Fernandez was wrong for how he handled it, plain and simple. This was a b-meet in the summer, with summer parent volunteers in Division 14 of the NVSL. Let's apply some common sense and decency here. This isn't state action with elitist approaches--volunteers doing their best and he was a jackass.

We can have the conversation on how leagues should handle trans swimming and registration, but for this instance Fernandez was wrong for his actions, not his objections.

Of course it is a real response, and I think you’d be surprised to find how far in the minority of people outside of power you are in insisting that he was wrong in how he handled it.

And the problem with the bolded is that by demanding that objections only happen at vague undefined “conversations,” you really want to shut all conversations down entirely. That’s what’s happened on this issue this far. The top-down, state-backed organizations have bottled all conversations entirely.

When dissent isn’t permitted, protestors find ways to protest that aren’t official. That is the history of civil disobedience in this country, and especially tactics that campaigners for women’s rights have always been forced to use.

We are talking about an adult male verbally abusing a little girl at a swimming pool. That's not "civil disobedience."

DP. The article didn’t mention him saying anything directly to the child. He spoke up to other adults. And also apparently it was a little boy, not a little girl.

The article, which is incredibly biased in his favor, says that he altered the records with the results. Is there any other circumstance in which an adult altering meet records in a race that their child swam in, to give the appearance that his child finished higher than they did, would continue to be welcome as an official?

The article also implies that there is disagreement about what was said, how loud it was said, etc . . . but altering the record seems to be something that he admits to.

Civil rights advocacy isn’t usually nice and pretty. Read some history.

If you have to quote history being on your side or civil disobedience to justify being rude to a parent or mean to a kid at a summer b-meet, you've already lost the argument. Quit tilting at windmills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't like how Fernandez handled this.

However, I also don't like how the team or meet organizers handled it, or how NVSL handled it. This is not a situation you can just pretend is not happening. It is happening. There are trans girls competing as girls in sex-segregated sports, and it is raising an issue of fairness.

The sports were sex segregated for a reason. It wasn't arbitrary. We cannot pretend suddenly that it *is* arbitrary because that makes it easier to tell the family of the trans girl "yes, of course she can swim in the girls category! we don't care!" Some people do care. And if, as in this case, the trans girl goes on to win, many people will view this as unfair to the biological girls who lost to someone who is making an affirmative choice to identify as a girl. A choice those girls didn't have.

This is where the progressive stance on trans girls in sports lose me. We cannot just pretend there isn't a problem here. And we can't just act like pointing out the problem immediately makes you a bigot.

If this wasn't a problem, there would be no sex segregation in sports to begin with.

I mostly agree with you, but I think you assume trans people don't "need" to be trans, but that is who they are. It is a really difficult situation and unfortunately boys sports are not a welcoming space for trans girls. Everyone deserves to have access to sports.

One, I have no opinion on what trans people need -- that is for them to decide. If a trans person decides they need hormone blockers, surgery, binding, whatever, that's fine with me. Those are personal, individual choices that have nothing to do with me, and I support laws that permit people to decide what they need for themselves. I feel about transness the way I feel about abortion -- it is no one else's business what an individual decides to do with their own body.

Two, I do not think boys sports are universally an unwelcoming space for trans girls. I actually think if we normalized the idea that trans girls participate on boys teams in certain sports, especially in progressive areas like the DMV, you would discover it's fine. I think we need to normalize talking about what makes sense, and what is fair, while also being respectful towards the gender expression of these kids, being thoughtful with our language, etc.

And yes, everyone deserves to have access to sports! That is specifically why many people, myself included, have started to get wary of the way that trans girls in sex-segregated sports may actually limit the access of biological girls and women to these sports.

I used to say "oh it doesn't matter, let people compete as they identify." Lia Thomas changed my feelings about it. A trans girl or woman competing on girls teams and in girls leagues can reduce the number of biological girls/women who have access to athletics, and reduce their success within those sports.

A trans person didn't choose to be trans. But a biological woman also didn't choose to be a biological woman. I don't think you can ask biological girls and women to step aside and give up access to things like athletics, that they had to fight for for decades, to make space for trans women. I think we need trans sports categories and to work on social attitudes so that we can still sex segregate in sports without it being an unfair burden on trans girls and women.

Here is a resource you might consider helpful: https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-people-and-sports#:~:text=For%20millions%20of%20Americans%2C%20sport,space%20for%20aspiring%20LGBTQ%2B%20athletes

It's a bit absurd to say "it would be fine" . In many cases it isn't "fine" - there is a reason sports participation is very low among lgbtq kids

it's not absurd to suggest than in a liberal suburb of a liberal city, it would be fine for a trans girl to participate in the boys category of a sport where boys and girls already train together. This is a swim club that was willing to kick out a member because they felt he'd been intolerant and unkind. But apparently if a trans girl raced against boys at that same club, she would experience unacceptable discrimination? That makes no sense.

With regards to trans athletes, there is a fundamental issue because they don't fully belong in either girls or boys categories. As someone who, though not trans, has often struggled with not fully belonging in my life, I have a great deal of empathy for kids in that position. It must be hard, and I always teach my own kids to practice tolerance and acceptance of others, to not get hung up on the ways in which a person might deviate from norms, and to see to find commonality not division. I absolutely think here is a place for trans kids in sports and I think we need to work to make sure that space is safe and welcoming.

But that doesn't mean we should pretend there is no physiological difference between boys and girls. This makes no sense, especially when we've obviously gone to the trouble of creating separate categories based on those physiological differences. We don't have to abandon fairness or common sense in order to make sure trans kids can participate.

Why is the only way to be tolerant and welcoming of trans girls in sports to allow them to compete against biological girls? Why is that the only solution? The one solution that disadvantages biological girls is the only possible option? Why can't we have a separate category for trans athletes, or a rule where all athletes compete with "sex assigned at birth" but also broad tolerance for gender presentation (including allowing any swimmer to wear a full coverage suit if preferred, regardless of sex or division) and promote all-gender practices and camaraderie? Why is what I'm suggesting bigoted?

He wasn't kicked out for being intolerant and unkind, just unkind.

Oh give me a freaking break. Being "unkind?" This is not kindergarten.

He was 100% right to raise the issue and, apparently, did so in a completely appropriate manner. If he did not, there would be swarms of video proving otherwise.

Article says: “Noticing that the race results had been posted, and that the male swimmer had won two races, Fernandez “decided to go get a marker and write the word ‘BOY’ next to his name.”

Writing BOY next to the swimmers name on the results pages hanging up on the wall that parents and kids look at to see times/finishes is not appropriate by any stretch of the imagination. That’s a bully move & also a d*ck move.

+1 Not to mention that this vandalism was the result of an adult man looking at a kid in a girls' swimsuit and deciding on his own that she didn't look sufficiently feminine for his tastes.

How do you know that? Maybe he knows the kid and/or the kids family and knows that the kid is a male. It is a small, private swim club after all.

July 13th is the end of the swim season. If he knew, I suspect he would have brought this up to the swim team or pool board well before this mini meet.

Stop defending the harassments of a child at a summer swim meet.

Bottom line is, the child was a boy and apparently shouldn't have been there.

Bottom line has nothing to do with the gender of the child - It was how the adult handled what he perceived to be unfairness in a fun competition. Regardless of the larger issue of trans boys swimming with girls, what this adult male did when something he perceived to be unfair was completely out of line and not someone I would want to be associated with at my local community pool. Can we just admit regardless of the larger issue, that he did not handle it appropriately?

DP and I don't think he handled it correctly.

However I also think part of the problem here is that there are not good avenues for handling this better. NVSL is silent on the subject, individual pools/teams will make their own rules, in many cases what happens is there are no actual rules and then decisions are made ad hoc when presented with the issue. Or sometimes the decision isn't made by the pool or team at all, it's made by the parents, with the hope or belief that others will just accept that decision.

This is a hot button topic and people feel strongly about it -- the league has an obligation to create clear rules everyone can live with, which will take it out of the hands of people like Fernandez who thinks he's righting a wrong or speaking up for a silent majority opinion. If the rules are clear, it's very easy to deal with people like this. When they are fuzzy or being interpreted different ways, it gives this kind of vigilante an opening to cause havoc.

It makes this kind of person necessary to protect children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't like how Fernandez handled this.

However, I also don't like how the team or meet organizers handled it, or how NVSL handled it. This is not a situation you can just pretend is not happening. It is happening. There are trans girls competing as girls in sex-segregated sports, and it is raising an issue of fairness.

The sports were sex segregated for a reason. It wasn't arbitrary. We cannot pretend suddenly that it *is* arbitrary because that makes it easier to tell the family of the trans girl "yes, of course she can swim in the girls category! we don't care!" Some people do care. And if, as in this case, the trans girl goes on to win, many people will view this as unfair to the biological girls who lost to someone who is making an affirmative choice to identify as a girl. A choice those girls didn't have.

This is where the progressive stance on trans girls in sports lose me. We cannot just pretend there isn't a problem here. And we can't just act like pointing out the problem immediately makes you a bigot.

If this wasn't a problem, there would be no sex segregation in sports to begin with.

I am far from either extreme in this debate, but if this man did walk up to the posted results and write "BOY" next to this child's time, he was completely out of line.

I mostly agree with you, but I think you assume trans people don't "need" to be trans, but that is who they are. It is a really difficult situation and unfortunately boys sports are not a welcoming space for trans girls. Everyone deserves to have access to sports.

One, I have no opinion on what trans people need -- that is for them to decide. If a trans person decides they need hormone blockers, surgery, binding, whatever, that's fine with me. Those are personal, individual choices that have nothing to do with me, and I support laws that permit people to decide what they need for themselves. I feel about transness the way I feel about abortion -- it is no one else's business what an individual decides to do with their own body.

Two, I do not think boys sports are universally an unwelcoming space for trans girls. I actually think if we normalized the idea that trans girls participate on boys teams in certain sports, especially in progressive areas like the DMV, you would discover it's fine. I think we need to normalize talking about what makes sense, and what is fair, while also being respectful towards the gender expression of these kids, being thoughtful with our language, etc.

And yes, everyone deserves to have access to sports! That is specifically why many people, myself included, have started to get wary of the way that trans girls in sex-segregated sports may actually limit the access of biological girls and women to these sports.

I used to say "oh it doesn't matter, let people compete as they identify." Lia Thomas changed my feelings about it. A trans girl or woman competing on girls teams and in girls leagues can reduce the number of biological girls/women who have access to athletics, and reduce their success within those sports.

A trans person didn't choose to be trans. But a biological woman also didn't choose to be a biological woman. I don't think you can ask biological girls and women to step aside and give up access to things like athletics, that they had to fight for for decades, to make space for trans women. I think we need trans sports categories and to work on social attitudes so that we can still sex segregate in sports without it being an unfair burden on trans girls and women.

Here is a resource you might consider helpful: https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-people-and-sports#:~:text=For%20millions%20of%20Americans%2C%20sport,space%20for%20aspiring%20LGBTQ%2B%20athletes

It's a bit absurd to say "it would be fine" . In many cases it isn't "fine" - there is a reason sports participation is very low among lgbtq kids

it's not absurd to suggest than in a liberal suburb of a liberal city, it would be fine for a trans girl to participate in the boys category of a sport where boys and girls already train together. This is a swim club that was willing to kick out a member because they felt he'd been intolerant and unkind. But apparently if a trans girl raced against boys at that same club, she would experience unacceptable discrimination? That makes no sense.

With regards to trans athletes, there is a fundamental issue because they don't fully belong in either girls or boys categories. As someone who, though not trans, has often struggled with not fully belonging in my life, I have a great deal of empathy for kids in that position. It must be hard, and I always teach my own kids to practice tolerance and acceptance of others, to not get hung up on the ways in which a person might deviate from norms, and to see to find commonality not division. I absolutely think here is a place for trans kids in sports and I think we need to work to make sure that space is safe and welcoming.

But that doesn't mean we should pretend there is no physiological difference between boys and girls. This makes no sense, especially when we've obviously gone to the trouble of creating separate categories based on those physiological differences. We don't have to abandon fairness or common sense in order to make sure trans kids can participate.

Why is the only way to be tolerant and welcoming of trans girls in sports to allow them to compete against biological girls? Why is that the only solution? The one solution that disadvantages biological girls is the only possible option? Why can't we have a separate category for trans athletes, or a rule where all athletes compete with "sex assigned at birth" but also broad tolerance for gender presentation (including allowing any swimmer to wear a full coverage suit if preferred, regardless of sex or division) and promote all-gender practices and camaraderie? Why is what I'm suggesting bigoted?

He wasn't kicked out for being intolerant and unkind, just unkind.

Oh give me a freaking break. Being "unkind?" This is not kindergarten.

He was 100% right to raise the issue and, apparently, did so in a completely appropriate manner. If he did not, there would be swarms of video proving otherwise.

Article says: “Noticing that the race results had been posted, and that the male swimmer had won two races, Fernandez “decided to go get a marker and write the word ‘BOY’ next to his name.”

Writing BOY next to the swimmers name on the results pages hanging up on the wall that parents and kids look at to see times/finishes is not appropriate by any stretch of the imagination. That’s a bully move & also a d*ck move.

+1 Not to mention that this vandalism was the result of an adult man looking at a kid in a girls' swimsuit and deciding on his own that she didn't look sufficiently feminine for his tastes.

How do you know that? Maybe he knows the kid and/or the kids family and knows that the kid is a male. It is a small, private swim club after all.

July 13th is the end of the swim season. If he knew, I suspect he would have brought this up to the swim team or pool board well before this mini meet.

Stop defending the harassments of a child at a summer swim meet.

Bottom line is, the child was a boy and apparently shouldn't have been there.

Bottom line has nothing to do with the gender of the child - It was how the adult handled what he perceived to be unfairness in a fun competition. Regardless of the larger issue of trans boys swimming with girls, what this adult male did when something he perceived to be unfair was completely out of line and not someone I would want to be associated with at my local community pool. Can we just admit regardless of the larger issue, that he did not handle it appropriately?

No. We can't. Because we're still waiting for proof. If his actions were so terrible, where are the videos from the many people who were filming the incident?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, here is the question:

Should sports segregate by sex?

If your answer is no, then there is your fix. Don't segregate. It's one group. Trans and intersex kids become irrelevant. Though be prepared for fewer girls to participate in athletics, even at the youngest levels, because it's harder for them to be successful and the sports will naturally start to cater to boys in all respect (culture, training, how equipment is designed, etc.) because those will be the people most interested and successful in the sport. So it will be like it was 80 years ago.

If your answer is that yes, sports should segregate by sex, you have to have a firm line. A clear, firm line. Everyone on this side of the line competes with boys. Everyone on that side of the line competes with girls. The line has to be communicated to everyone and you need buy-in for where the line is drawn. You can't have one team drawing the line here and another team drawing it over there. You can't have a line that wiggles around depending on who is around that day and what "feels" fair in the moment. You need a clear line.

Whatever your stance on this, if you can't answer the bolded question above with a clear yes or no, then your input isn't really helpful here. And if your answer is yes, you need to be able to convey a clear, easy to follow rule for how kids get assigned to a competition group, and you need to be able to convince the most other people to agree with it. Otherwise you are trying to force a rule that feels unfair or wrong onto everyone else, and that's never going to work.

Don't segregate by sex, do segregate by height/weight or qualifying times / seeding rounds.
So, your kid may be the fastest swimmer in the race for U-10s who are under 50 inches. Or, he may be the fastest swimmer in the U-10 red group, where groups are based on last meet's times.

I would be fine with sorting by qualifying times only for the U-10 group. But eventually you have to segregate by sex because of hormones. Height won't work if you have girls competing against boys in or finished with puberty. The physical effects of testosterone on the body are too dramatic. And of course height levels off.

And if you sort by qualifying times past age 10 or 11, what happens is that all the fastest groupings will be dominated by boys if not entirely boys, which will diminish interest in the groupings with more girls. Both among people watching and among the athletes themselves.

While "separate but equal" doesn't work very well for other categorizations, it actually works really well for sports and gender. Because when you group all the girls together, you create a competitive environment for girls that can look just like the one for boys. Yet when you mix them together, most girls lose. So for me, protecting that environment for girls is really important because I want girls to view athletics as something that is for them, something they can invest time and energy in, something they can find rewarding, something they can do for life. It's very hard to do that without having a category for girls sports, due to the natural advantages that men and boys have in athletic contests.

This is well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there literally any proof that this even happened?

I think we're well beyond that - please try to keep up.

DP, but we are actually not well beyond that. Thus far, everyone in this thread is reacting to a piece of propaganda that is intended to manufacture threads like this one. Even assuming that every factual claim in the piece is true, we are missing important information. As was -- in all likelihood -- this gentleman.

This made me curious so I did some Googling - there's nothing about this anywhere except the article linked in the OP and a few other rightwing outrage machines reposting it (sometimes with a few original lines as a lead in).

So I went to the Woodley Pool's Facebook page to see if members are discussing it at all, and found the original post announcing the July 13 "meet" (no comments on that or any following posts about this supposed controversy) where it says:

There is still time! Sign up for the Mini Meet today. It’s a great way for your kids that aren’t yet a part of the Woodley Warriors to get a taste for a swim meet in a fun event for the whole family!
Even our youngest swimmers can use a kick board and have one of our talented teenagers in the lane with them.

And . . . I cannot imagine anything less worthy of outrage than the idea that a kid might have been competing in the wrong "division" at an event thus advertised. If this happened, then Luis Fernandez is certifiably insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there literally any proof that this even happened?

I think we're well beyond that - please try to keep up.

DP, but we are actually not well beyond that. Thus far, everyone in this thread is reacting to a piece of propaganda that is intended to manufacture threads like this one. Even assuming that every factual claim in the piece is true, we are missing important information. As was -- in all likelihood -- this gentleman.

That has nothing to do with PP's statement which was casting doubt that the episode even happened. As I said, we're well beyond that.

You points to the matter of not all the details are known, which I don't disagree with, implicitly acknowledges that it happened.

So yes, it happened. Probably not exactly as was presented in the article but other than PP, I don't think anyone else is saying that "it didn't happen".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there literally any proof that this even happened?

I think we're well beyond that - please try to keep up.

DP, but we are actually not well beyond that. Thus far, everyone in this thread is reacting to a piece of propaganda that is intended to manufacture threads like this one. Even assuming that every factual claim in the piece is true, we are missing important information. As was -- in all likelihood -- this gentleman.

This made me curious so I did some Googling - there's nothing about this anywhere except the article linked in the OP and a few other rightwing outrage machines reposting it (sometimes with a few original lines as a lead in).

So I went to the Woodley Pool's Facebook page to see if members are discussing it at all, and found the original post announcing the July 13 "meet" (no comments on that or any following posts about this supposed controversy) where it says:

There is still time! Sign up for the Mini Meet today. It’s a great way for your kids that aren’t yet a part of the Woodley Warriors to get a taste for a swim meet in a fun event for the whole family!
Even our youngest swimmers can use a kick board and have one of our talented teenagers in the lane with them.

And . . . I cannot imagine anything less worthy of outrage than the idea that a kid might have been competing in the wrong "division" at an event thus advertised. If this happened, then Luis Fernandez is certifiably insane.

Again, it’s a low key mini meet. Who cares who swims. Dogs and cats could’ve been allowed. Kick boards were certainly allowed. Sounds like this guy wanted to pick a fight and knew this was easy rage bait.

[Anonymous]

And it’s not even like the parents of the child can come out and say anything, it’s a lose lose for them.

If their child was in fact assigned female at birth, this could shine an unnecessary spotlight on their child and cause embarrassment.

If the child was male at birth, it’s only going to inflame things further.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there literally any proof that this even happened?

I think we're well beyond that - please try to keep up.

DP, but we are actually not well beyond that. Thus far, everyone in this thread is reacting to a piece of propaganda that is intended to manufacture threads like this one. Even assuming that every factual claim in the piece is true, we are missing important information. As was -- in all likelihood -- this gentleman.

This made me curious so I did some Googling - there's nothing about this anywhere except the article linked in the OP and a few other rightwing outrage machines reposting it (sometimes with a few original lines as a lead in).

So I went to the Woodley Pool's Facebook page to see if members are discussing it at all, and found the original post announcing the July 13 "meet" (no comments on that or any following posts about this supposed controversy) where it says:

There is still time! Sign up for the Mini Meet today. It’s a great way for your kids that aren’t yet a part of the Woodley Warriors to get a taste for a swim meet in a fun event for the whole family!
Even our youngest swimmers can use a kick board and have one of our talented teenagers in the lane with them.

And . . . I cannot imagine anything less worthy of outrage than the idea that a kid might have been competing in the wrong "division" at an event thus advertised. If this happened, then Luis Fernandez is certifiably insane.

Amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And it’s not even like the parents of the child can come out and say anything, it’s a lose lose for them.

If their child was in fact assigned female at birth, this could shine an unnecessary spotlight on their child and cause embarrassment.

If the child was male at birth, it’s only going to inflame things further.

Oh for pete's sake.

They don't have do it from a stage with a microphone.

Hi, meet marshall, what's going on? I understand there is a question about my son Larlo?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And it’s not even like the parents of the child can come out and say anything, it’s a lose lose for them.

If their child was in fact assigned female at birth, this could shine an unnecessary spotlight on their child and cause embarrassment.

If the child was male at birth, it’s only going to inflame things further.

Oh for pete's sake.

They don't have do it from a stage with a microphone.

Hi, meet marshall, what's going on? I understand there is a question about my son Larlo?

They probably would say daughter. Presumably they identify as female if swimming in the girls group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't like how Fernandez handled this.

However, I also don't like how the team or meet organizers handled it, or how NVSL handled it. This is not a situation you can just pretend is not happening. It is happening. There are trans girls competing as girls in sex-segregated sports, and it is raising an issue of fairness.

The sports were sex segregated for a reason. It wasn't arbitrary. We cannot pretend suddenly that it *is* arbitrary because that makes it easier to tell the family of the trans girl "yes, of course she can swim in the girls category! we don't care!" Some people do care. And if, as in this case, the trans girl goes on to win, many people will view this as unfair to the biological girls who lost to someone who is making an affirmative choice to identify as a girl. A choice those girls didn't have.

This is where the progressive stance on trans girls in sports lose me. We cannot just pretend there isn't a problem here. And we can't just act like pointing out the problem immediately makes you a bigot.

If this wasn't a problem, there would be no sex segregation in sports to begin with.

I mostly agree with you, but I think you assume trans people don't "need" to be trans, but that is who they are. It is a really difficult situation and unfortunately boys sports are not a welcoming space for trans girls. Everyone deserves to have access to sports.

One, I have no opinion on what trans people need -- that is for them to decide. If a trans person decides they need hormone blockers, surgery, binding, whatever, that's fine with me. Those are personal, individual choices that have nothing to do with me, and I support laws that permit people to decide what they need for themselves. I feel about transness the way I feel about abortion -- it is no one else's business what an individual decides to do with their own body.

Two, I do not think boys sports are universally an unwelcoming space for trans girls. I actually think if we normalized the idea that trans girls participate on boys teams in certain sports, especially in progressive areas like the DMV, you would discover it's fine. I think we need to normalize talking about what makes sense, and what is fair, while also being respectful towards the gender expression of these kids, being thoughtful with our language, etc.

And yes, everyone deserves to have access to sports! That is specifically why many people, myself included, have started to get wary of the way that trans girls in sex-segregated sports may actually limit the access of biological girls and women to these sports.

I used to say "oh it doesn't matter, let people compete as they identify." Lia Thomas changed my feelings about it. A trans girl or woman competing on girls teams and in girls leagues can reduce the number of biological girls/women who have access to athletics, and reduce their success within those sports.

A trans person didn't choose to be trans. But a biological woman also didn't choose to be a biological woman. I don't think you can ask biological girls and women to step aside and give up access to things like athletics, that they had to fight for for decades, to make space for trans women. I think we need trans sports categories and to work on social attitudes so that we can still sex segregate in sports without it being an unfair burden on trans girls and women.

Here is a resource you might consider helpful: https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-people-and-sports#:~:text=For%20millions%20of%20Americans%2C%20sport,space%20for%20aspiring%20LGBTQ%2B%20athletes

It's a bit absurd to say "it would be fine" . In many cases it isn't "fine" - there is a reason sports participation is very low among lgbtq kids

it's not absurd to suggest than in a liberal suburb of a liberal city, it would be fine for a trans girl to participate in the boys category of a sport where boys and girls already train together. This is a swim club that was willing to kick out a member because they felt he'd been intolerant and unkind. But apparently if a trans girl raced against boys at that same club, she would experience unacceptable discrimination? That makes no sense.

With regards to trans athletes, there is a fundamental issue because they don't fully belong in either girls or boys categories. As someone who, though not trans, has often struggled with not fully belonging in my life, I have a great deal of empathy for kids in that position. It must be hard, and I always teach my own kids to practice tolerance and acceptance of others, to not get hung up on the ways in which a person might deviate from norms, and to see to find commonality not division. I absolutely think here is a place for trans kids in sports and I think we need to work to make sure that space is safe and welcoming.

But that doesn't mean we should pretend there is no physiological difference between boys and girls. This makes no sense, especially when we've obviously gone to the trouble of creating separate categories based on those physiological differences. We don't have to abandon fairness or common sense in order to make sure trans kids can participate.

Why is the only way to be tolerant and welcoming of trans girls in sports to allow them to compete against biological girls? Why is that the only solution? The one solution that disadvantages biological girls is the only possible option? Why can't we have a separate category for trans athletes, or a rule where all athletes compete with "sex assigned at birth" but also broad tolerance for gender presentation (including allowing any swimmer to wear a full coverage suit if preferred, regardless of sex or division) and promote all-gender practices and camaraderie? Why is what I'm suggesting bigoted?

He wasn't kicked out for being intolerant and unkind, just unkind.

Oh give me a freaking break. Being "unkind?" This is not kindergarten.

He was 100% right to raise the issue and, apparently, did so in a completely appropriate manner. If he did not, there would be swarms of video proving otherwise.

Article says: “Noticing that the race results had been posted, and that the male swimmer had won two races, Fernandez “decided to go get a marker and write the word ‘BOY’ next to his name.”

Writing BOY next to the swimmers name on the results pages hanging up on the wall that parents and kids look at to see times/finishes is not appropriate by any stretch of the imagination. That’s a bully move & also a d*ck move.

+1 Not to mention that this vandalism was the result of an adult man looking at a kid in a girls' swimsuit and deciding on his own that she didn't look sufficiently feminine for his tastes.

How do you know that? Maybe he knows the kid and/or the kids family and knows that the kid is a male. It is a small, private swim club after all.

It was a mini meet for folks not on the swim team, AND he says that he based it on appearance, AND he says that he approach the child's family because they were filming the race, not because he recognized them.