I do NOT fail to recognize that she had an incredibly difficult path being trans. Even more than the difficulty of attaining her station and rank, period. But the fact is that it would have been nearly impossible for her to have achieved rank without the penis and testicles.
One of the main takeaways by the UCI in their study on transgenders in sports was indeed that while generally having a male chassis appeared to provide an advantage, one of the underappreciated advantages trans athletes had was that boys are bred for sports. Boys are bred to be successful. This is an early advantage, this is a big advantage.
The people who are adamantly against Lia Thomas in swimming are generally the same people mocking the USWNT soccer team, boycotting the Women's World Cup because the women wanted better training facilities and payouts for their performances. These same people were applauding Butker for his 1950s view on women. They aren't fighting for fairness in women's sports, they just want transgender people to go away, mostly because transgender people confuse them.
My …. ambivalence about Levine is about the era of sexism that existed when she and I were young but was significantly less..,obvious for people of your generation.
Girls of my generation were told daily that boys were better at math and science—even if she was demonstrably significantly better at math and science. Speaking from personal experience. Many boys told me that girls —and I was not very good at math despite me always scoring better than they did. More than one teacher told me my perfect math score was ‘lucky’ and sent me off to help a male student who was ‘just as smart’ ( one actually was but being told he was stupid by the teacher took its toll). I briefly considered applying to the Naval Academy but knew myself well enough to know I would dislike being in the military and dropped the idea. The boy in my class who did receive an appointment was bright and a good student with test scores significantly below mine and mediocre athlete and very nice. I did not begrudge him anything that came his way. I DID begrudge him the opportunities he and other boys won by virtue of their genitalia.
At university, my male lab partners wordlessly left the lab, leaving me, the girl, to clean up. My lab TA put his arm around my shoulders telling me it was ‘ no big deal’ if I missed a point on the computer graded lab report—in a course filled with premed students who thought every point meant the world. And no one—including the TA understood the computer programs ( punch cards in those days).
My father, who was as sexist as most of his generation nonetheless told his daughters they could do anything they wanted and pushed us to excel in math and science. And told me, when I mentioned med school, that I’d forget about all of that once I married and had kids. He was my biggest supporter aside from some teachers. My mother wondered when I’d start acting like a girl, You know: wear pink, and hair curlers. My parents were the most progressive parents I knew with regards to their daughters’ ambitions. My best friend was not given a middle name because when she married, she’d use her ( father’s) family name as her middle name so to was unnecessary, I loved her parents but that still infuriates me,
Girls of my era were called ugly names for being good at math, s once, sports, mechanics, anything ‘male’ related. We were not allowed to take shop classes, mechanics or drafting, even if we wanted to be an architect, as one of my friends did.
We were presumed to be able to type, cook, see, and take care of children, without regards to our actual interests or skill set, and that would be our primary role —until the kids were in school full time at which point we were free to contribute to the family finances unless it interfered with hubby’s career or hobbies.
I honestly do not care about trans girls competing in girls sports—unless they prevent cis girls from being able to compete.
I do not care that Rachel Levinemade it to Asst. Secretary—actually I am delighted. The only part that rankles is the ‘first woman’ part because the qualifications were earned when she presented and lived her life as a male when that gave her a very very significant advantage.
Category:Women_prime_ministers_in_Europe is to be trusted. Even Thailand has had TWO female P.M.'s recently, though these two shared a surname with, and were widely viewed as surrogates for, their criminal brother/father.
