Show me a scientific survey that proves the average girl is just as strong and athletic as the average boy. If you can't, then you're doing a disservice to the girls by putting them into a genderless field that disadvantages them by ignoring reality.
Just look at world records in track and field by gender. Usain Bolt is almost a full second faster in the 100 meter than any woman *ever*. 18 and under males in high school competitions routinely beat women all time world records.
It's obvious that there are very few women that can compete successfully in a genderless athletic arena. So in what way would eliminating gender in sports be fair or beneficial to women? The net effect would be to deny them the opportunity to compete against their most obvious, logical and natural peers.
Absent some sort of gender based quota system, genderless athletics would deny a lot of women the opportunity to participate at all. Is this really the goal?
Tom Brady is the ultimate example of being thoroughly unexceptional physically yet transcending his sport via mental acumen. But even for normal players it’s possible to have a wide range of roles and body types working together: hockey can have small guys and big guys play together and somehow they each contribute in their own way.
You mention the idea of “most obvious, logical and natural peers”, but from a first principles perspective that would immediately lead one to find peers who produce similar outputs during play regardless of inputs. Or should we make basketball teams solely of the tallest kids in a school regardless of their level of athleticism because that seems more logical?
Ultimately it seems like there’s a lot of confirmation bias going on that propagates the status quo and discards consistent counterexamples as black swans. I can easily imagine a different world where people can compete at the level they feel is the right intensity/skill/etc for themselves (or as judged by others via fair tryouts). Boys already do this with house/travel or intramural/club/varsity and no one worries that the ones who aren’t genetic lottery winners are going to get pummeled or embarrassed or whatever. You would just need to field as many teams as there as interested players, regardless of sex, and you’d have the same level of opportunity for everyone.
Badminton anyone? Oh, wait ... men have an advantage there too because they can jump higher.
Boys already do this with house/travel or intramural/club/varsity and no one worries that the ones who aren’t genetic lottery winners are going to get pummeled or embarrassed or whatever.
For a multitude of reasons, most teams beyond grade school have tryouts with limits on team size. They are not open to just anyone who shows up. Most who aren't genetic lottery winners never try out and if they do, they never make the team in most cases. The parents are the first level of responsibility for this.
Most parents understand it's pointless at best and counterproductive at worst to enroll your kid in a sport that he lacks the ability to be competitive in.
You would just need to field as many teams as there as interested players, regardless of sex, and you’d have the same level of opportunity for everyone.
So college football for example will be open to anyone "interested"?
How about someone who is paraplegic? Can he make the team too just because he's "interested"?
Who pays for the expense of all this dead weight on the teams?
Clearly this is impractical bunk that is never going to happen in reality. "Sport for all" is meaningless and empty and will most likely result in "sport for none".
Well, the examples in the article were people who were told they couldn't compete in a sport, because of their gender (i.e. women can't wrestle) not combining seperate gender categories within a sport, so I think they're arguing against women being denied the opportunity to participate at all.
I do not understand why this is something that must be proven.
> It's obvious that there are very few women that can compete successfully in a genderless athletic arena.
Respectfully, is it? Or do we assume this to be the case?
