Great points all.

You know, I’ve been thinking lately that something a lot of critics are missing in this debate is the entire purpose of school sports.

Setting elite, Olympics level and professional athletics aside, academic sports programs are supposed to help young people develop. 99.99% of student athletes in the US are pure amateurs. They participate for fun, for health, and for socializing. Ask any school athletics director why their programs exist, and that’s what they’ll tell you. (Although they may not entirely mean it.)

I used to wonder why we don’t see raging debates in Europe over transgender athletes in school, until it occurred to me that schools in the UK and Europe don’t as a rule offer competitive sports programs.

Kids in school there play sports with one another for fun and health. Kids who want to become competitive athletes join semi-professional or professional clubs with youth wings. (Think Real Madrid’s or Manchester United’s celebrated youth football (soccer) programs.)

I think much of our American problem with trans student athletes stems from the notion that school sports programs are ideally routes to professional athletics. University sports programs here often are professional athletics in everything but name and player compensation.

I’m not suggesting of course that the solution to the controversy of trans people in school sports is to revamp school sports. That’s clearly not a winnable battle.

But it would sure be nice if people would stop talking about school sports as if they were momentous, professionally equivalent athletics. If we talked about how kids playing sports is good for them because it’s, you know, good for them, I think that would help rebalance the fairness question.

It’s not fair for trans kids not to be able to benefit from sports. School sports matter because they matter, not because they are highly competitive.