I ran cross-country and track in high school and college. I played basketball as well. When I did this I didn’t identify as non-binary, but if I had how would I have felt being on the women’s team because that wasn’t my gender identity. I know that there will never be a non-binary team, because it really wouldn’t make since. The reason it wouldn’t make since is that people that identity as non-binary where assigned male or female at birth. This would totally make things unfair, because the biological makeup with hormones it is totally different. The people that were assigned male at birth would have a huge advantage because they have more testosterone which makes them stronger and faster most of the time. The reason I decided to write about this this week is there has been lots of talk in the media in regards to transgender athletes in high school. When talking about transgender athletes this would be the athletes that are transitioning from male to female or female to male, not non-binary athletes.
Several states have banned transgender athletes from participating in sports. This wouldn‘t really have applied to me because I’m non-binary and I haven’’t had any hormone therapy. The states that have started to ban transgender athletes say their reason for doing so is because of title VI, which was put in place to make things more equal for women athletes. The following article gives you more information as to why and which states are taking this route.
The other article I have included in this blog is what the Olympics might decide to do with transgender athletes. I kinda like the approach that they are taking. This topic will become more and more visible as time goes by, because more people are coming out as transgender. However, I don’t think that non-binary athletes will ever become part of this discussion, except those that decide to do hormone therapy.
Thank you for bringing the non-binary perspective to this whole conversation, Meredith. Would there be any merit in giving non-binary athletes a choice of which team they prefer to participate on or which gender athletes they prefer to compete against? Just mulling how this expands. And I'm sure the parents of nonbinary kids in the support group I'm part of in Duluth, and their kids, are really struggling with these hateful, horrendous measures being pursued against them in school sports. It's enough to make it through adolescence, and enough to navigate being bi in a society that doesn't understand; these kids don't need this retributive action against them, and many weary, I know, of having their personal lives talked a…