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this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts
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There’s a big issue with using weight classes in team sports: player weights vary dramatically. Take the NFL for example. Setting aside the enormous differences in weight between linemen (offensive and defensive) and all other position players, there are also huge weight differences within a given position. For example, quarterback Jared Lorenzen was 6’4” and weighed 275 lbs whereas Russell Wilson is 5’11” and weighs 211 lbs. That’s a huge weight difference!
You can find similar weight differences across players in other leagues (NHL, NBA, and MLB). Weights don’t really correlate with overall skill level though they do somewhat correlate with position and skill set (and height of course).
How would you classify by weight in team sports? You might think to do it by position but none of the leagues require a player to remain at a single position for their career. Players can and do switch positions, and many even do so multiple times during a game. Sports like NBA basketball don’t even have any particular rules about what a player at any given position is allowed/not allowed to do, so the positions on team rosters are more like a suggestion than a requirement.
For team sports, don't all firefighters have to go through the some physical stress test to show they can all operate on the same basic level? Maybe there is that minimum physicality test and if you can pass it, male or female, you become NFL eligible - maybe it's a combine thing? You can then have since that are more of less fit and capable, as with firefighters, but they've all met that standardized minimum to start. How does that not solve this?
For broader need, maybe you could just start with the majority of the Olympics being co-ed and weight class?
In that scenario, I think people may need to be ready to accept that there could still be a "natural" separation in performance by sex to start as even strong athletes may still be socialized to play differently. Give it a generation or so though and I think the weight class thing could normalize competition level as birth-assigned boys and girls grow up playing with each other on the same fields.
All of this is fine when we're talking F > M transition. There would be no competitive advantage and I'm pretty sure, pretty much no-one would be able to make it professionally going this route.
The problem is M > F taking part in female sports. No amount of treatment or hormones would ever completely take away the massive physical advantage this person would have. It simply isn't fair to cis women.
I just don't think I agree with this though, and maybe we'll just stop at a fundamental disagreement.
Again...
pairing different general body types in weight classes where applicable
as well as the potential for that general physicality test to set a minimum for a league.
plus time to normalize true co-ed competition where folks grow up knowing nothing else but normal and aren't stigmatized for developing their body to fit a given sport's ideal need.
The third one probably asks the most of current society (though that's a sad comment on society) in having to accept the appearance of someone actively acting against currently socialized standards of attractiveness associated with assigned sex. But if we could trying embrace those three, my personal hypothesis is that things would level much more than most expect.
The true and only reason that we don't do this, is that it would label those bottom third or so of males that fear they would be labeled as "less capable than a girl!". Whereas now, even the worst players on the high school football team can usually get on the team and wear a jersey around campus, regardless of if they ever actually get into games. That kid's bigoted parent will fight to be sure "their son's spot" is not earned by a more capable birth assigned female.