By DEEPTI HAJELA
NEW YORK (AP) — They play on the same team, but they couldn’t be further apart.
One member of the women’s volleyball team at San Jose State University has signed on to being part of a federal lawsuit against the NCAA challenging the presence of transgender athletes in women’s college sports. The specific person she cites? One of her own teammates.
The situation swirling around the SJSU team — which has gotten increasingly chaotic in recent weeks, with several teams canceling matches against the school and politicians and advocates weighing in — somehow seems unsurprising in the polarized United States these days as a highly contested election looms.
As with other points of dispute in the struggle over gender identity and transgender rights, one thing opposing sides have in common is framing their stance as a matter of what’s fair and right.
Where they stand a chasm apart is in one fundamental sticking point, a tough question in any arena: What does ‘fairness’ actually mean?
The discussion around ‘fairness’ is complex
That the idea of what is fair or not can vary from person to person probably shouldn’t be surprising. After all, a sense of right and wrong is part of the human worldview, formed from highly individual factors like each person’s environment, the cultures they grow up and live in, and their experiences.
And while science and research into areas like hormone treatment and transgender athletic performance, which is only in the early stages at present, could at some point provide more medical information and data, it still won’t answer the question of “what is fair,” says Dr. Bradley Anawalt, a hormone specialist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
“The science is going to be able to allow us to some degree calculate the advantages and disadvantages. And eventually, with good studies, we’re going to have an idea of when, how long you have, to suppress somebody’s testosterone level … how long does it take for differences in muscle strength and muscle mass to come down,” says Anawalt, who is also a member of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports.
“So those kinds of questions we can answer, but we’re never going to be able to answer this fundamental question about fairness,” he says. “Because that is not a medical or a scientific concept. It’s a social justice and a human concept.”
Fairness came up frequently Saturday at a rally supporting the women’s volleyball team from the University of Nevada, Reno, the latest of five teams to forfeit against SJSU. Players had refused to “participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” and some reiterated that stance at the rally.
The rally drew several hundred people. McKenna Dressel, a junior from Gilbert, Arizona, told the crowd that her dream since she was a young girl of being a college athlete has been turned upside down.
“Our season has been filled with turmoil and headache. We have all been directly affected …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
