The tragic thing is that I think trans rights activists have been so disingenuous, and have shown themselves to be determined to make the realities of biological sex a taboo, that people who are paying attention end up taking a much harder line stance than they otherwise would.

I don't think that anybody in their right mind opposes young children competing against each other. But it would also be hopelessly naive not to think about the precedents being set.

For example, I was a sprinter for a number of years when I was younger. I broke the adult women's 100m world record when I was 16 years old. As I mentioned in the article, that record has stood since 1998. None of the top female sprinters today are even close. Yet 14, 15, and 16 year old boys break it every year. This is the size of advantage we're talking about here.

Of course, most 16 year old boys can't run that fast, but the top 5% or so can. And as under-18s aren't required to undergo any kind of hormone treatment to complete as the gender they identify as (not that hormones level the playing-field as I mention), the girls are at a huge disadvatage even if they're competeing with a very average male athlete. How do we make sure they can compete for scholarships or simply to establish themselves as future athletes?

What I find most frustrating about all of this is that I really did mean what I said about everybody having the right to compete. Trans boys, the forgotten characters in this story, have almost no chance of succeeding against biological boys. I also think that this is wrong.

It's a really difficult problem to solve. Separate leagues are obviously potentially alienating, but there are also lots of pros to that solution for the vast majority of kids. Maybe kids could run alongside each other but have their performances evaluated in trans and cis categories. That way, cis girls wouldn't be completing with trans girls for scholarships (hope that makes sense). Maybe somebody smarter than me can think of a better solution.

But casually erasing the category of female athlete to appease the feelings of trans athletes, especially when trans activists seem to have no concerns about the feelings of cis athletes (female athletes are nearly unanimous in their opposition) is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. As I heard it put recently, identites don't compete in sports. Bodies do.