Protecting Women's Sports & Spaces

Women need to stand up for their rights to safe spaces

The rumor mill has it that Lia Thomas now self-identifies as an 8-year-old and will play Pop Warner football against kids her new age. Lia has predicted that she will smash all of the current rushing and scoring records.

Back in college, I organized informal volleyball games for friends who wanted to have some fun followed up by a few beers on hot summer days. Initially, it was all guys and so to make it more interesting we changed the rules to allow bodily contact at the net. Specifically, you could hip-check an opposing player onto his ass if he wasn’t braced for a big hit. Not surprisingly, we called it Aussie Rules Volleyball. Most of the players were big beefy specimens who had played football, hockey, and rugby, and so could take hits as well as they could mete them out.

Then one day a young woman showed up to play. She was a natural athlete who excelled at multiple sports, including volleyball. We immediately realized that we would have to drop the Aussie Rules and go back to regular volleyball for two reasons. First, we all had been raised to never rough house with girls, and second, she was a good half foot shorter than the rest of us and 80 to 100 lbs lighter.

She quickly came to dominate the games because of her skill and in particular the ability to serve the ball into just the right square foot of court where no one could respond in time.

Another time she was organizing a softball game and invited me to play. I dreaded the thought of the humiliation that was sure to come as I struck out. Softball was a sport I hated and avoided. Then a miracle happened and I hit the first pitch a good 75 yards. I then immediately told her that I had to leave due to some pressing business that needed to be attended to. Obviously, the real reason for my quick retreat was that I knew the miracle would never be repeated.

All this is a lead-up to my main point, which is that society segregates sports not only on sex but on other factors such as age, strength, weight, and skill level. This is done to protect participants from injury and to make the playing field as level as possible for everyone. In male sports, the less talented player can usually compensate by knocking or hip-checking the more talented one into next week.

As a result, I am very happy to see female athletes finally speaking up about being forced to compete against biological males and then sharing changing rooms and showers with them.

Three heroines in the fight to protect women’s sports and private spaces are:

Swimmer Riley Gaines: Champion collegiate swimmer. (More)

Surfer Bethany Hamilton: Champion surfer, shark attack victim, and the subject of the movie Soul Surfer. (More)

Women’s Spaces Advocate Kellie-Jay Keen: leads the fight to keep biological males out of women’s changing rooms and biological male rapists out of women’s prisons. (More)

To close off here, I will say that anyone who exploits unfair advantages in competition is a jerk.

My Preferred Adjectives

Fabulous, wise, enchanting, cultured