In the past few decades, society at large has been gaining a greater understanding of gender diversity. While most people fit into the male-female binary, not everyone does.
Some have the physical built of one gender, but feels like the opposite gender in the inside. Those people are usually referred to as transgender.
Some were born with the genitalia of both genders. Those people are usually referred to as intersex.
People who are transgender or intersex are usually placed in the larger category of non-binary (because they don't fit into the male-female binary).
Being different doesn't mean you're deficient, just different.
In the larger society, people of various genders can mingle and work together. Well, ideally at least.
But when it comes to sports and restrooms, the genders are still segregated, mostly along the male-female binary.
That becomes difficult for those who are non-binary.
Most of the buildings are built before society was educated on non-binary issues, so it becomes awkward for some to use the only restrooms available which are labeled along the male-female binary. For those who are non-binary, they face serious harassment (and even physical brutality) when they enter either bathrooms.
Newer buildings are built with one-stall restrooms that could be used with either gender. This not only benefits the non-binary, but also parents with children of the opposite gender, or any caretaker in the same situation.
I actually know some people who advocate for mixed-gender restrooms, where men, women, and non-binary can be in the same restroom at the same time. That probably won't happen anytime. It's not so much the fear of trans women in women's restrooms, it's more the fear of the average heterosexual male in women's restrooms.
It appears, however, that the introduction of gender-neutral bathrooms in schools in the United Kingdom has made it difficult for girls to go to the toilet. Reports claiming that girls are shamed into holding their pee or skipping school due to the fear of being teased—not by those in the LGBTQIAP+ community, but by boys—have been released. This may just show that these toilets are not the most inclusive solution after all, The Daily Mail reports.
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Additionally, girls have claimed that they hold in their pee, refusing to urinate all day, due to the anxiety they feel when utilizing same-sex toilets. In some extreme cases, girls have simply stopped drinking liquids at school altogether.
Unfortunately, many girls risk infections when doing so. As general practitioner Dr. Tessa Katz noted, holding in one's pee for extended periods of time on a consistent basis could lead to an increased risk of urinary and bladder infections. She added, "The psychological effects of girls not feeling safe enough to use mixed-sex toilets [are] also concerning." Therefore, doctors and lawmakers alike have called for schools to reconsider their decisions to establish gender-neutral bathrooms. Tory Member of Parliament David Davies affirmed, "If girls are not comfortable sharing toilets with boys then schools should make provision for them, rather than saying girls have got a problem."
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For sports, this is another complicated issue!
At most schools, there is no "boy's robotics team" or "girl's robotics teams". There's no "boy's science club" or "girl's science club". There's no "boy's chess club" or "girl's chess club". There's no "boy's yearbook staff" or "girl's yearbook staff". There's just a "robotics team", "science club", "chess club" or "yearbook staff". Anyone of any gender identity can join.
Some of those student organizations might have an uneven distribution of genders, but even a student organization with 75% males allow for female and non-binary students who are interested.
Just like even if a basketball team has a tryout of mostly African-American students, even those of different ancestries can try out for the team. If you got game like Steve Nash or Jeremy Lin, you're on the team! It would be offensive in this day & age for a school to have a "blacks only basketball team" and a "whites only basketball team". And those who don't fit the black-white binary, where would they go?
When it comes to gender, most sports teams are divided based on a binary.
Being that most people fit within the male-female binary, it works fine for most people.
But those who are non-binary who are interested in sports, where would they go?
Those who are trans-women might feel that the girl's team would be the best option. However, many females might feel that would put them at a disadvantage since trans-women still tend to have the physical size & muscle mass of the average male.
Women fighters who have fought transgender fighter Fallon Fox have said that her male body mass gave her an unfair advantage even to the point where they said they've never been hit harder in the ring when fighting other female fighters.
But even in non-contact sports (for example, cross country), there is controversy when non-binary athletes win championships in the women's category.
I'm tempted to say let's have a non-binary category for sports, so that there's male sports events, female sports events, and non-binary sports events. That might be simple for individual sports like track, swimming, or mixed-martial arts, but it gets more complicated for team sports. At most schools, there's most likely not enough non-binary students to fill a basketball team, and even more unlikely to have enough for a tackle football team. Probably the best case scenario would be to combine non-binary students from nearby schools to make a basketball team.
Just like how an Asian student shouldn't feel left out of a basketball team if his school has mostly students who fit in the black-white binary (that's why it's illegal for teams to discriminate based on race), we wouldn't want a non-binary student to not have an opportunity to pursue an interest in playing basketball.
There are no simple answers! Non-binary games might still get called "discriminatory" even though I think it's the best answer. And I never want non-binary athletes to feel excluded from the opportunity to play sports and I think if we're going to continue with gender-segregated teams, then non-binary games might be the best answer.
Either that or have all sports have mixed-gender teams!
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Here are some interesting articles with various perspectives on this issue
(note: inclusion of these articles is NOT an endorsement of everything stated in these articles)
articles advocating for the inclusion of transgender athletes
Sport is a Human Right—So Let Trans Women Compete | by Cait Glasson | Arc Digital
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from a more conservative perspective, addressing concerns about the ability of females to compete with transgender athletes
Unfair Trans Competition in Girls’ Sports (townhall.com)
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on Fallon Fox fighting female fighters
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on an openly lesbian tennis legend Martina Navratilova getting backlash over addressing concerns of transgender athletes compete in women's events.
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an article advocating for ending gender segregation in sports. The article cites an example of a short female Kanty Canatazaro (only 5 feet tall) beating large males in a televised obstacle course competition that requires strength and stamina.
Stop Segregating Sports by Gender – Reason.com
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my blog post from 2013 on reforming Title IX
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/09/improving-on-title-ix.html
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my 2015 blog post on gender & racial identity, which also address non-binary issues in Western and non-Western cultures
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2015/06/identity.html
