About sex segregation in sports...

[Note: here "women" and "men" can be read as "cis women" and "cis men," but usually when I talk about women and men I mean all of them, cis, trans, nonbinary, and more.]

Despite what some people say, sex segregation in sports is NOT for the protection of women's health. Women are not that fragile.

Sex segregation in sports is for the protection of men's egos, which are that fragile.

We don't know women's true capabilities at the current moment. We are barely beginning to emerge from a long period of enforced ignorance about women's capacity for strength and athletic achievement. Example number one million or so:

For decades, the idea that “lighter is faster,” was the reigning mythology passed on by most track coaches when it came to conditioning, especially to endurance athletes. Coaches would encourage young female runners, who often have higher body fat percentages than their male counterparts, to lose weight to improve performance.

Today, many women runners are flipping the script. They’re discovering how dangerous undernourishment can be – including the risks of disordered eating – and are seeking out coaching that supports proper fueling. The old model of coaching for thinness is gradually giving way to an emphasis on strength and stamina.

Undernourishment by athletes competing at high levels can have a number of bad health effects; one of them is bone micro-fractures. I have seen TERFs citing the prevalence of micro-fractures among women athletes as proof that women need protection from competing with men--but in reality it's evidence that women in sports are being systematically discouraged from adequately nourishing themselves.

Until sexism is eradicated, nobody can make any blanket statements about women's capacity for athletic achievement.

#Sexism #Transphobia #Misogyny #Sports #Olympics #Running #WomenAthletes

npr.org/sections/shots-health-…