For over 100 years we have created divisions and categories for athletic competition. The original segregation for purposes of ability matching was by sex. Obviously there were other ones based on prejudices like racial divisions and socioeconomic status. While there were likely strong confounders like desire to keep out of competition from superior athletes who happened to be of a different race, etc., this was not a purely ability-based separation.
Beyond sex-based categories, there have been many more separations to better group like-to-like competitors. For example, there are designations with the most distinct being professional versus amateur. High schools and colleges normally compete in certain divisions. Within sports there are weight classes (boxing, wrestling, etc.) and tours and qualifiers (golf, tennis, etc.).
It seems to me the next step in this process is to fully segregate sports by proven and expected talent regardless of sex.
The recent case of swimmer Lia Thomas brings this to the forefront, but it is something that has been around for a long time. It would come as no surprise that many historic female athletes we know of were somewhere on a spectrum of male-female that did not cut neatly between the traditional sex categories. It would further come as no surprise that there are a much larger number we never were given a chance to know of because they were not allowed/encouraged to compete.
Two recent pieces on the topic of Lia Thomas are instructive: The first by Megan McArdle asks the question whether women’s sports should exist at all. The second by Suzy Weiss prods the awkward juxtaposition that this situation has created whereby those who would/"should" be expected to support a trans athlete are now those arguably harmed by it.
These are undoubtedly rare cases, but we cannot dismiss them unless we are willing to blatantly exclude a meaningful group of potential competitors from participation for sake of forcing clear, hard lines where shades of grey actually prevail. Keep in mind that these edge cases are critical because those in question are generally vying for first place in the female category. If we want a world where we have two definitions of greatness, the actual fastest, strongest, best (almost always males) and the next group excluding the first, then we need to figure out where and how to draw that line between the two.
Trying to draw the line on the basis of a single metric like testosterone won't get us there as this is multi-causal--there is no more a single athlete gene as there is an intelligence gene. Hence, sex phenotype works almost always until it doesn't either because of genetic edge cases or the more controversial transition cases. The latter is the news of the day and the very interesting dilemma we now face where reconciling two forms of inclusionary fairness have come into conflict. The former is how we know this isn't so easy as to say you can be a member of the club if you have always been a member of the club.
So I propose the thought experiment of self determination (set and test and rethink rules and norms at the most local level practicable) and separation by capability regardless of sex/gender (consider eligibility based purely on ability in the specific sport or event).
Obviously this is change, which to sports fans specifically like humans in general is bad, very, very bad. But before you reject the proposal out of hand consider two points: For one, are we sure we want to have female-only competitions? Keep in mind this excludes a lot of males from enjoying a competitive forum with status. For another, are we sure males will want to compete with females? The stronger you think the answer to the first question is or should be "yes", the weaker is the concern implied by the second.
Would there be complications as well as manipulations including out-right fraud? In sports?!? Of course there will be. This is nothing new. But while it creates an opportunity for scheming, it forces a harder look at the processes we use to sort and match competitions. This should result in better outcomes in the long term. Letting a hundred flowers bloom via open-minded exploration is the key to figuring out a new, stable equilibrium. If you doubt we can be open-minded about this exploration, you are totally ignoring why this is now an issue in the first place.
Beyond the risk of bad actors poisoning the pool of competition, the much bigger potential downside is that the disruptions will end women’s sports and perhaps even some men's divisions as we know them. This could be an outcome that means many kids and even adults don’t have a forum in which to play the sport they love and otherwise excel at even as it grants new opportunities to others in those forums (a point raised above).
Yet again we are faced with the tough reality of tradeoffs.
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