Christopher Herr is a teacher at Concord High School and a Concord resident.
House Bill 1205 would prohibit transgender female athletes from participating in school sports “for women, women, or girls” in grades 5 through 12. The N.H. Senate held its first hearing on the bill this week. One of the main arguments of proponents supporting this bill is that people identified as male at birth grow larger, stronger, and faster on average than those identified as female at birth. It is based on the idea that transgender female athletes will grow up. They will have an unfair biological advantage over cisgender female athletes in athletics.
Sports have never been fair. Since the dawn of the first athletics in human history, there have always been athletes who have a biological advantage over others. Until recently, we’ve always praised athletes for their biological advantages (or hated them, if they were the opposition). Athletes who are taller, faster, can jump higher, or throw harder than others are so often praised that in fact, as spectators, we use special words to acknowledge their talent. Masu. “I can’t teach you that.”
One of the most obvious advantages that one athlete can have over another that no one can control is height. Basketball, volleyball, swimming, baseball, and football are just a few of the sports where height can give an athlete a significant advantage. You can’t control it. That’s how tall you are.
According to the CDC, the average height of American adults over the age of 20 is 5’9″ for men and 5’3.5″ for women. Perhaps the most popular and well-known athlete in America right now is Caitlin Clark. She is a women’s basketball player at the University of Iowa who broke NCAA basketball career scoring records (women’s and men’s) last season.
She is 6 feet tall, which is 8.5 inches taller than the average American woman. Clark’s Iowa State team lost to the University of South Carolina in the national championship game, and the Most Valuable Player of the Final Four was named South Carolina, who is between 6 feet 7 inches and 15.5 inches taller than the average American woman. It was Camila Cardoso, a center from the University of Carolina. She said Cardoso’s height at the age of 12 was 6 feet 5.5 inches.
There are many biological advantages beyond height. Speed, agility, wingspan, foot size, hand size, hand-eye coordination, foot-eye coordination, stamina, etc. Some of these can be improved with proper training, but they are all biologically unrelated and vary from person to person. Gender assigned at birth.
The most famous swimmer in American history was Michael Phelps, who won 23 gold medals and was 6 feet 4 inches tall with a wingspan of 6 feet 7 inches (height to wingspan ratio of 1:1). (generally), and the size is 14 feet. His ankles are double jointed, allowing him to move his feet 15 degrees further back and forth than normal, all of which are advantageous in swimming. Simone Biles is the undisputed pinnacle of American gymnastics (both male and female) and the most decorated gymnast in history, but she also stands at 4 feet 8 inches tall (a little taller than the average American). 7.5 inches) lower than women. In this sport, the shorter the person, the easier it is to pull. Turn off the most acrobatic routines.
In fact, not only has biological advantage for athletes been accepted for thousands of years, but we actually encourage children to participate in sports where they have a biological advantage over other children. I am. Do you have a child who is taller than normal for his age? That’s a virtual guarantee that multiple adults, and perhaps even that child’s parents, will encourage that child to try basketball. Do you have a kid who is faster than normal and has amazing foot-eye coordination? Maybe he was encouraged to play soccer. Do you have a kid with a cannonball for an arm and above-average hand-eye coordination? Adults are probably pushing soccer, softball, baseball, etc. I’m sure many of you reading this column, including many state legislators, have given just this kind of encouragement to your own children.
Some sports, such as wrestling and crew, have weight classes to eliminate some of these biological advantages. But in all sports, biological advantages are still prevalent, celebrated, and used by us to encourage children to play certain sports and discourage others. It has become part of something.
The idea that sports were fair because there was no biological advantage before transgender athletes is laughably inaccurate. What HB 1205 does is effectively recognize biological advantage in sports for all athletes except transgender female athletes. That doesn’t protect fairness, it only discriminates.