Quote:
Originally Posted by Lanfear
There actually is a German guy who is missing one leg below the knee and tried to sue his way into competing in regular competitions for sprinting and long jump. They did some test and found he had an unfair advantage because of course he has.
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Yep. Oscar Pistorius faced similar scrutiny before Olympic competition.
Open and inclusive sports still aren't open to everyone. When major differences present barriers to fair competition, we change the competition's rules.
We do this to divide children and adults. Adults and seniors. The able-bodied and the disabled.
Heck, it's even done for the disabled and the severely disabled. There are people out there who aren't sufficiently disabled to compete in disabled-centric competitions, yet not sufficiently able-bodied to compete in those competitions. That's rough, and that's the world that we live in.
The social inclusion of transgender members of our society has to take into account their biological reality. That's for better (access to hormones as a medical necessity) and the worse (gender-segregated athletic competitions).
I also think it's fascinating that Chemda has such strong opinions about competitive athletics. I've listened to this show for going on ten years, and it has almost never been an area of interest for her.