While reading this article I had different opinions at
different times because the issue of gender and or sex in sport isn’t something
you think about on a daily basis, though it is becoming more common. This
article mentioned many transgender cases such as Kye Allums (basketball), Lana
Lawless (golf), and Renee Richards (tennis). Allums’ case is different than the other two because she is
a female-to-male athlete competing in female college basketball and has not had
any gender-reassignment surgery yet or taken any hormones. However if Allums
does decide to have hormone treatments I doubt she will be able to compete in
women’s basketball still because testosterone is a banned substance in the NCAA
as it should be.
In the cases of Lawless and Richards, and what I think is
most of the controversy when it comes to transgender athletics, they were males
at birth and now want to compete against females in athletics. I think there
are a number of different stances people could take on this issue and I think
both raise good points. But as I was reading this article I couldn’t help but
think of the movie Juwanna Mann. For people who haven’t seen it, it is about a
professional male basketball player who is kicked out of the NBA and poses as a
woman to play in the WNBA in an attempt to keep playing basketball and not lose
everything he owns. Clearly he has an unfair advantage and that is why people
don’t know whether or not to exclude transgender athletes from competing in
women’s sports because of a possible unfair advantage.
There have been women in the past who have been good enough
to compete against men in sports and that is good for them, I think that would
be fun to see. And if the men don’t mind then women should be allowed to
compete against them, which is kind of what I think when it comes to
transgender (male-to-female) athletes competing against women. Perhaps a panel
of women athletes should vote on what policy they think is fair, because there
needs to be some sort of policy otherwise, just like the movie, men can try and
pose as women to become pro athletes. However if they have had the surgery and
taken the hormone treatments I think perhaps it might be fair for them to
compete but I am not 100% sure and like the article says Renee Richards isn’t sure
either as she says she can understand why the LPGA won’t allow Lawless to
compete because she may have an advantage as strength comes into play (Robson,
2010).
By: Angel Akinkuoye
ReplyDeleteHey Matt!I had a few different opinions on reading this article as well. I've never thought about the topic of gender and sex when it came down to sports. I never really thought about gender and sex in any given topic to be serious. I'm curious on a few things. Since testosterone is banned in the NCAA for women, if Kye Allums decided to get a sex reassignment surgery, would this mean his chances of playing basketball for a college or university, is thrown out the window? As for Lawless and Richards, I not exactly sure what to say. After reading this article, I had one of those infamous "what ifs" questions. What if another league was made for only transsexuals? They would be able to compete against each other, as well as not getting judged by who they are.
I also think it would be interesting to see women and men competing in a game against each other. Since everything is constantly changing, I feel as though a new rule will state that transgenders could play in a game with the people born and stayed the same sex. I enjoyed reading your blog because there was a few good points that I shared similar beliefs to.