i am trying to avoid this issue of trans kids playing sports and i can't. i frankly don't care much about competition, and i would not consider this to be a pressing concern to most transgendered women. what percentage of transwomen care about sports? at all? 10%? nor is the issue of much importance to voters, but it's seen saturation level advertising, and the political establishment is reacting by following through so it can say "look, we won".

so, i've been forced to reflect on something i don't care much about and in the process have developed a different perspective.

i think the broader concern should be america's unhealthy obsession with competition and success in children's games, and that this is in truth merely one manifestation of the broader sickness in american culture around competition and sports. this issue with trans kids playing sports is really the same kind of abuse we see young men routinely incur at the hands of their fathers and increasingly see young women incur at the hands of one or both parents. for too many young people in america today, their worth as human beings is tied directly to their ability to excel at some children's game that is a triviality in the larger scope of existence.

the question that keeps jumping out at me is why the political and academic systems aren't encouraging more healthy attitudes about children's competitions, more generally - ideas about sportsmanship, inclusion and the importance of having fun when you play the game. is a factor in america's obesity rate the attitude it instills about exercise as a competitive process in so many young children? does the way that america approaches exercise as a form of competition exclude and alienate so many people, not just trans people, that they become so mentally damaged and experience so much trauma that they end up dangerously overweight?

i want to see the system promote more co-ed exercise activities that are about co-operating in teams and including and accepting people in the team despite their differences, and not about hypercompetition and the exaggeration of difference as factors to analyze in the course of competition. 

kids should be having fun when they exercise, not be so obsessed about winning that they attack their colleagues over coveted spaces on the team.

when i was a kid, they told me that it didn't matter who won, what mattered was that you enjoyed the activity. there's lost wisdom in that. i would rather refocus on cooperation and de-emphasize competition than kneejerk with a militant trans rights response.

that's what i have to say after thinking about it a little and needing to adjust to this barrage of media. this isn't my fight on it's face, but perhaps it is in abstraction, and i want to side with co-operation in opposition to competition.