Transgender and sports teams

JTG4eva! wrote

campgottagopee wrote

Not sure where you guys have kids in school, or what experiences you've had, but you have some pretty strange ideas, IMHO.  Competitive youth sports the equivalent of creepy preteen beauty pageants?  Gross, creepy fat dads living vicariously, inappropriately, through their kids?  Athletes playing just one sport?  My younger son is involved in premier level youth soccer, I'm not fat and still play competitive soccer to this day so I'm not living vicariously through my son, and I'm only a little bit creepy .........and I don't see much of any of what you guys are talking about where I live.

Yes, my son is on a premier level U13 soccer team and has played at an Academy level.  He's enjoyed the sport from a young age and he sought out the opportunity to get better.  However, in addition to playing soccer in the fall he'll run winter track and is on the tennis team, in addition to playing soccer year round.  Yes, he wants to play soccer in high school, and since we don't live in an everyone-gets-on-the-team area (if such a thing exists) that's the level of commitment and effort you have to put in if you want to achieve your goal.  It's a bad thing to instill that kind of work ethic at a young age, especially when not forgoing a wider developmental experience?  I don't think so.  Heck, we could talk ODP programs and college level sports/scholarships, all of which require skills developed and used at a high level from a young age, but I'll stop here.

I grew up in Northern NY and raised my kids in NYC, two pretty different places but equally creepy when it comes to youth sports.  Just calling it like I see it.  I competed at the D1 level 4 yrs of college and loved it.  I encourage everyone to be as physically active for as long as they possibly can be and I cannot state the virtues of excercise enough BUT, yes , highly competitive youth leagues are gross.  If a kid has university-level talent it will show itself during high school.  

Whenever I book a night in Placid I try to avoid youth hockey/lacrosse weekends, as the place in usually overrun by nasty groups of adolescent-like parents behaving as if they're at a high school beer bash while their little monsters tear up the place...... Gross.  Best thing my old man (who was a college coach) did for me was to introduce the sports to me but not overvalue them.  I learned to love the games and used them to my advantage later on when my body and mind had developed.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2011-09-13/new-policy-transgender-athletes

Here's the official NCAA policy on transgender competition, it's interesting.  I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, just putting out the facts.  Only if a male born athlete is taking testosterone-suppressing hormones can they compete on a female team.  That'd be a pretty heavy commitment for a verile teen boy to undertake just to get a rowing scholarship to Williams....

JohnIrvingwrestles wrote

......overrun by nasty groups of adolescent-like parents behaving as if they're at a high school beer bash while their little monsters tear up the place...... Gross.

Yes, there are all types out there, very many of them disrespectful with a sense of entitlement.  I've seen it too, and it is gross.  Of course, generalizing that all competitive youth sports participants and parents as being gross based on the bad apples is.....gross

JTG4eva! wrote

JohnIrvingwrestles wrote

......overrun by nasty groups of adolescent-like parents behaving as if they're at a high school beer bash while their little monsters tear up the place...... Gross.

Yes, there are all types out there, very many of them disrespectful with a sense of entitlement.  I've seen it too, and it is gross.  Of course, generalizing that all competitive youth sports participants and parents as being gross based on the bad apples is.....gross

Again, just calling it like I see it and it looks an awful lot like little miss beauty pageants to me.

Uncoachable kids become unemployable adults.

Maybe someone should look into the original story from the OP? She's not a high school player. She's a 52 year old trans woman playing on a community college team:

http://espn.go.com/espnw/athletes-life/article/10170842/espnw-gabrielle-ludwig-52-year-old-transgender-women-college-basketball-player-enjoying-best-year-life

MAtt thanks for chasing this down , i had seen this story awhile back , i think on tv , but had forgotten about it .This issue has some serious impact at all levels of competition and will require more work to assure both fairness and consistency  for all.

A 6'6", 260 lb former man posing as a woman has a body mass and muscle structure that exceeds the AVERAGE. Community college female basketball player and has no doubt displaced someone else for that slot .The college i worked at had a regional NJCAA championship women's hoop team for several seasons in late 90's . These kids could play the game at a very high level for women's two yr colleges , but our dominating big woman was 6' tall and weighed perhaps 175 . She was dominating in the paint.

Hey if that specific  CC. Wants to carry that person on its team ,so be it , but to pretend that everything is equal in terms of development and skill well that is another concern.

With the obvious dominating difference in height  and muscle mass distribution that individual would be an "aircraft carrier in the paint " so i get why that coach wants the individual on his team . He wants to win and look for competitive advantages so i do not have issue there , but my guess is title IX had impact on his decision too.

 Would the person be competitive on a male team who knows , but this person has a very great advantage when competing as a woman and to some this may seem unfair or reverse discrimination . That said i think the NCAA policy that John mentioned is fair and at least now a guideline with some specificity,but more work needs to be done to deal with this at ALL  levels of competition

JohnIrvingwrestles wrote

Whenever I book a night in Placid I try to avoid youth hockey/lacrosse weekends, as the place in usually overrun by nasty groups of adolescent-like parents behaving as if they're at a high school beer bash while their little monsters tear up the place...... Gross.  Best thing my old man (who was a college coach) did for me was to introduce the sports to me but not overvalue them.  I learned to love the games and used them to my advantage later on when my body and mind had developed.

When we went to U14 States at Bristol there was a bunch of hockey kids staying at the Hotel in Victor for a tourney.  The parents were really classy rolling coolers of beer into the lobby and getting sloppy drunk while their little brats ran up and down the halls all night with zero supervision.  Our small group of ski racing boys played a board game and went to bed so they could perform their best the next day.

ml242 wrote

First of campy, the picture was presented without context, so we have no idea what's going on...

Wasn't even HS sports, but I'm glad everyone here is an expert on transgender children and athletics.

https://youtu.be/rUY5YXjSr20

Pretty much...

<nabble_embed>https://youtu.be/rUY5YXjSr20</nabble_embed>

Ha, what a fool. He is basically suggesting that the NC law was a plant so progressives could get what they want, the polar opposite of what happened.

The majority rule part is funny if you think about it

Johnnyonthespot wrote

I'd hit it

Johnnyonthespot wrote

Uncoachable kids become unemployable adults.

painting with quite a broad brush

i've done all right

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-humiliating-practice-of-sex-testing-female-athletes.html

Another issue that goes way back. This article and the pictures that accompany it in print are fascinating. Women have had to deal with a lot of shit, and the issue of gender has been a rabbit hole for a long time. Turns out many champions have had male chromosomes. There really are some money quotes including

"It's hard to draw a line on gender when nature refuses to"

And just the fact that the ioc set up their task force to find men competing as women after the games in Germany and have never caught anyone.

That should poke a few holes into the "scholarships" straw man

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/11759952

What do you who have kids think. Is it fair to have transgender competing with non-transgender? Should their be transgender leagues?

https://www.outsports.com/2018/6/14/17458696/trans-athlete-connecticut-high-school-ban-petition

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