This blog is in response to a comment made by one of my followers. Thanks Jennifer Amy-Dressler for being such a loyal follower and friend. In regards to your question, “Would there be merit in giving non-binary athletes a choice of which gender athletes they prefer to compete against?” This question actually would become a double edge sword, because of the way hormones affect the body. I think that why there has been such a debate around transgender athletes that have started hormone therapy.
Testosterone plays a major role in this issue. There have been several studies that show hormone therapy affects performance in transgender males and females. I have provided a link to a study that was conducted on female and male transgender members in the military, comparing them to their cisgender counterparts.
This study shows how hormone therapy changed the military members performance during their fitness test,
I can attest to how when the boys in my neighborhood started going through puberty they started beating me at basketball and other sports I enjoyed. The boys started jumping higher and running faster. I could no longer compete against them. This would be the main reason I would choose to compete against the other girls at my school. I don’t know if it would be fair if a non-binary person that was assigned male at birth, presented female decided to choose the play with females because that made them more comfortable.
I feel the best solution for non-binary athletes would be to allow them to present the way they feel more comfortable or find other ways for them to compete with the group that makes them feel more comfortable. I’m not sure how finding ways to make the playing field more fair in this situation would work. It would probably take a lot of studies and trying many different things.
I hope that this helps you understand why some things are done the way they are in sports. I can see that way way in the future this situation will improve. Maybe even later in history there won’t be separate male and female teams.
For example I played intermurals in college the men and women played together. The way they went about this was allowing a certain number on females and males on the field at the same time. So this method would work for sports that used a field or court, but I’m not sure how it would work in track and field, which can be more of an individual sport.
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