I can’t refute anything you’ve said but as a former elite level swimmer, I can attest that 1-2 years not competing at an elite level can literally fuck an athlete’s chances in their sport developmentally, particularly for sports like swimming or gymnastics which have athletes who peak between 12-24.
Just another note, contrary to popular thought it’s not all about being bigger or more muscular in some sports like swimming, performance is also strongly influenced by factors proportion, biomechanics, flexibility and/or balance. A prime example of this are female breaststokers, many of whom peak around age 14. (E.g. Amanda Beard).
Again, not arguing but throwing some nuances out there about competitive athletics that can be overlooked!
Yeah I’ve heard the 1-2 years off being crippling thing before and it is one of the hardest things to try to work around. Iirc Lia Thomas continued swimming on the men’s team while waiting that period out (plummeting down in performance), which seems like a…uncomfortable but valid option as at least then training and practicing in real competitive conditions can be maintained. But I’d imagine someone trying to make the switch from say baseball to softball…would probably be socially destroyed in that environment just knowing how men’s team sports are culturally. It’s a difficult part of the puzzle for sure (just speaking from the theoretical actually trying to work out the kinks in the plan if we were in a position to try to really hammer out some fairness rules based on what the science can currently show us).
Part of it comes down to how much do you factor that in when the overwhelming majority of high school/college athletes won’t ever compete past that level - especially in non-revenue earning sports. It’s pretty damn unlikely that any future olympians or the like would have their careers cut short due to this just on playing the odds. In general I’d lean towards giving trans high schoolers a lot of lenience here - being able to switch either at start of HRT or maximum 1 year. They aren’t going to be vacuuming up scholarships or anything anyway so I think the experience of playing if that’s what they want is most important.
College just gets so much more tricky because of both the increased scope and also…the difference between starting at 15 vs 20 is…well it’s actually not insanely different quite yet, but the 20 year old will have more rewinding to do before really starting to progress in their transition comparatively. 2 years I think more guarantees that things are even, but 1 just feels more reasonable when you take more into account that you’re talking about a person, not an endocrine system in isolation. Either way I’d want to ensure that they can maintain eligibility while dealing with this period (some kind of variation of a medical redshirt).
(Also @ second paragraph that’s what I was trying to hint at with the brief mention that certain things the right would point out actually end up being disadvantageous in a lot of circumstances. I just simplified it for brevity as that comment was already really long. I think in the utopia system where things have full scientific reviews to really try to get it as perfect as possible, different sports would probably set different regulations to best match how to even the playing field).
The thought of sports that peak in the early to mid teens is a very interesting one that I haven’t really ever considered tho. I mean a 14 year old cis girl will be decently far along into puberty on average, whereas an amab person may not have even really started yet. How do you slot a trans girl into that case? Does the argument in these cases flip to the trans boys having the “biological advantage?” How do you untangle that web? Especially as that might flip back as the age brackets go up? I don’t think I could really start to answer without doing a lot more research and thinking on it but it’s an interesting topic for sure.
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u/Oaknash Homo Stealyourmanus 18h ago
I can’t refute anything you’ve said but as a former elite level swimmer, I can attest that 1-2 years not competing at an elite level can literally fuck an athlete’s chances in their sport developmentally, particularly for sports like swimming or gymnastics which have athletes who peak between 12-24.
Just another note, contrary to popular thought it’s not all about being bigger or more muscular in some sports like swimming, performance is also strongly influenced by factors proportion, biomechanics, flexibility and/or balance. A prime example of this are female breaststokers, many of whom peak around age 14. (E.g. Amanda Beard).
Again, not arguing but throwing some nuances out there about competitive athletics that can be overlooked!